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THE 


ELEME^^TS  OF  ETHICS 


BY 

JAMES   H.   HYSLOP   Ph.D. 

INSTEUCTOR    IN    ETHICS    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE    NEW    YORK 
AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  ELEMENTS  OF  LOGIC  " 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBXER'S    SONS 

1895 


Copyright,  1895,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  CAXTON  PRESt 
NEW  rORK 


3 
\0 


4 


TO 

MY  FATHER 

THIS 

BOOK    IS    AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 


19389 


PREFACE 

The  present  work  is  designed  as  an  introductory  treatise  upon 
the  fundamental  problems  of  theoretical  ethics,  and  therefore  to 
obtain  standing  ground  from  which  to  consider  the  practical 
questions  that  are  affected  by  general  principles.  The  book  may 
seem  rather  an  elaborate  treatise  for  an  introduction,  but  so  great 
are  the  complications  of  ethical  problems,  so  manifold  are  their 
interests,  and  so  various  have  been  opinions  regarding  them,  that 
a  writer  to-day  must  choose  between  the  perfunctory  task  of  pro- 
ducing a  mere  syllabus  of  words  and  the  more  important  duty 
of  saying  enough  to  satisfy  the  wants  of  those  who  desire  more 
than  platitudes,  and  who  wish  some  insight  into  the  complexities 
of  the  case.  The  analysis  of  various  questions  has  been  made  as 
complete  as  reasonable  limits  would  allow,  with  the  special  pur- 
pose of  trying  to  throw  some  light  on  the  perplexities  of  ethical 
theories,  and  to  present  the  author's  conclusions  regarding  them. 
This  purpose  has  involved  a  very  exhaustive  application  of  the 
analytic  method,  which  may  try  the  patience  of  those  who  desire 
synthetic  and  comprehensive  results.  But  the  writer  is  con- 
vinced that  we  shall  never  get  out  of  the  wilderness  of  scholastic 
controversy  and  see-sawing  with  traditional  theories  until  the 
analytic  method  is  first  carefully  applied  and  our  exact  where- 
abouts determined.  We  may  then  give  a  synthetic  survey  of  the 
field  without  embroiling  ourselves  in  the  hocus-pocus  of  endless 
and  futile  discussions  about  words  that  may  have  a  thousand 
meanings. 

A  long  chapter  has  been  given  on  the  origin  and  development 
of  ethical  problems,  which  is  nothing  more  than  a  brief  history 
of  the  principal  ethical  theories  and  o[)inions  of  the  past,  I)c- 
ginning  with  the   period  immediately  preceding  Socrates.     It 


vi  PREFACE 

has  been  given  as  a  preliminary  step  to  the  right  understand- 
ing of  present  questions  and  their  complexity.  Present  ethical 
reflection  is  the  accumulated  heritage  of  the  past,  and  only  the 
historical  method  can  at  the  same  time  show  us  the  richness  of 
that  bequest  and  the  multiplicity  of  its  elements.  It  is  hoped, 
therefore,  that  the  chapter  will  be  a  timely  contribution  for  the 
use  of  teachers  who  appreciate  the  value  of  that  method  and 
wish  such  a  survey  as  introductory  to  present-day  discussion. 

I  make  no  apologies  for  the  elaborate  treatment  of  the  freedom 
of  the  will,  though  the  tendencies  to  determinism  by  general 
writers,  and  the  indifference  of  many  to  both  sides,  might  be  an 
excuse  for  ignoring  it  altogether.      But  the  importance  of  the 
question  to  ethics  is  so  great  that  no  one  can  neglect  it  except 
such  as  coquet  with  determinism  without  analyzing  their  concep- 
tions, and  yet  endeavor  to  perform  the  contradictory  task  of  con- 
structing a  system  of  ethics.     The  amount  of  intellectual  con- 
fusion on  this  subject  by  both  sides  of  the  discussion  is  simply 
amazing.     All  are,  perhaps,  agreed  that  the  question  is  one  re- 
garding the  possibility  of  alternative  choice,  but  many  of  the 
arguments  pro  and  con  are  wholly  irrelevant  to  it,  while  few 
wi'iters  adequately  reckon  with  the  equivocations  of  the  terms 
"  determinism,"  "  cause,"  and  "  freedom."     This  lengthy  chapter, 
therefore,  is  an  attempt  to  fully  analyze  the  whole  problem,  to 
present  a  solution  of  it,  to  conciliate  controversy,  to  fix  the  mean- 
ing and  interest  of  freedom  for  ethics,  and  to  obtain  a  position 
regarding  it  where  discussion  is  not  a  logomachy  and  a  sheer 
■waste  of  time. 

Other  subjects  receive  the  same  kind  of  analysis,  and  must 
speak  for  themselves.  I  shall  simply  call  attention  to  the  analy- 
sis of  conscience,  the  treatment  of  reason  and  desire,  and  of  the 
relations  between  impulse,  instinct,  and  reason,  as  attempts  to 
secure  a  way  out  of  much  confusion  in  different  writers.  Of  my 
success  I  am  probably  not  a  judge. 

One  thing,  perhaps,  will  annoy  some  readers  and  critics,  espe- 
cially if  they  have  mastered  elementary  principles.  This  is  the 
fact  of  much  real  or  apparent  repetition.     This,  however,  has 


PREFACE  vii 

been  deliberate.  The  writer's  experience  with  beginners  has  been 
that  he  must  repeat  certain  fundamental  conceptions  over  and 
over  again  at  different  places  and  at  different  points  of  vicAV  in 
order  that  the  key  to  ethical  problems  may  not  be  buried  under 
a  mass  of  matter  in  which  it  would  not  be  easily  discovered. 
Students  must  have  emphasis  and  variation  or  they  lose  the 
point  at  issue.  This  is  the  reason  that  condensation  has  been 
forced  to  give  way  to  the  necessities  of  pedagogical  purpose. 

I  am  under  great  obligations  to  Dr.  Norman  Wilde  for  read- 
ing the  proofs  and  for  occasional  suggestions  as  the  book  passed 
through  the  press.  My  other  debts  of  gratitude  are  distributed 
rather  equally  over  too  many  writers  on  ethics  to  make  any  spe- 
cific acknowledgments  for  their  share  in  the  result. 

JAMES  H.  HYSLOP. 

Columbia  College,  December  4, 1894. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

IXTEODUCTION, 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Origin  and  Development  of  Ethical  Problems,  .      18 

CHAPTER  III. 

Elementary  Principles, gg 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Freedom  of  the  Will, 150 

CHAPTER  V. 
Responsibility  and  Punishment,         ......    224 

CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Nature  of  Conscience, 251 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Origin  of  Conscience, 284 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Theories  and  Nature  of  Morality,         ....    349 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Morality  and  Religion, 39S 

CHAPTER  X. 
Theory  of  Rights  and  Duties, 424 


ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION 

I.  DEFINITION. — 1st.  The  term  "  Ethics  "  is  derived  from  the 
Greek  word  7)603,  which  denotes  "  custom,"  "  manners," 
"  morals,"  and  finds  its  equivalent  in  the  Latin  "  mores,"  from 
which  the  English  "  moral "  is  derived.  The  term  7/603  again 
is  a  modified  form  of  i'603,  which  denotes  "  habit,"  "  usage,"  or 
the  practice  of  social  life.  The  difference  between  the  two  terms 
was  probably  very  slight.  However  this  may  be  they  expressed 
everything  that  the  body  politic  of  Graeco-Roman  life  would 
denote  by  social  obligation  and  practice.  This  was,  then,  origi- 
nally the  comprehensive  content  of  investigation  whenever  this 
branch  of  i^hilosophy  was  considered.  In  the  process  of  time 
the  term  was  somewhat  narrowed,  until  it  came  to  denote  almost 
exclusively  that  branch  of  study  which  occupied  itself  with  the 
nature,  disposition  and  actions  of  the  individual,  and  hence 
turned  the  interests  of  social  life  over  to  Politics. 

2d.  Logically,  Ethics  must  be  defined  as  both  a  science  and 
an  art.  In  so  far  as  it  is  a  name  for  the  observation,  classifi- 
cation and  explanation  of  certain  phenomena,  it  is  a  science  ;  in 
so  far  as  it  attempts  to  regulate  and  to  influence  human  action 
by  instruction,  admonition  or  advice,  it  is  an  art.  Hence  we 
may  define  it  as  the  science  ef  t lie  phenomena  of  human  character 
and  conduct,  and  the  art  of  directing  the  human  will  toward  the 
ideal  order  of  life.  This  twofold  nature  of  the  subject  is  the 
basis  of  the  division  into  theoretical  and  practical  Ethics,  and 
illustrates  many  of  the  complexities  of  the  subject.     Considered 


2  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

merely  as  a  science,  also,  it  treats  of  two  distinct  classes  of 
phenomena,  namely,  those  of  the  will  and  those  of  the  world,  in 
so  far  as  they  represent  virtue  and  the  good,  or  a  desirable  order  of 
things  and  events  affecting  the  welfare  of  man.  The  distinction 
between  these  will  be  considered  in  its  place.  For  the  present, 
and  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  we  may  consider  it  as  embodied  in 
the  terms  character  and  conduct,  which  may  represent  the  men- 
tal condition  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  external  actions  on  the 
other,  which  make  up  the  complex  idea  of  morality.  The  phe- 
nomena of  human  character  are  the  tastes,  disposition,  desires  and 
aversions,  affections,  motives,  and  all  mental  conditions  related 
to  the  fixed  or  changeable  nature  of  the  will.  The  phenomena 
of  conduct  are  man's  volitions  and  actions,  comprehending  all 
forms  of  behavior  affecting  his  own  and  the  welfare  of  others. 
Both  together  constitute  the  subject  matter  of  Ethics,  and  they 
are  always  supplemented  by  a  more  or  less  direct  reference  to  the 
nature  and  influence  of  the  physical  universe  upon  man  as  a 
moral  agent.  All  such  facts  and  forces  have  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  the  regulation  of  conduct,  and  hence  cannot  escape  the 
notice  of  Ethics. 

3d.  There  are  several  current  definitions  of  the  subject 
which  should  receive  a  passing  notice,  and  this  for  the  large 
amount  of  light  they  help  to  throw  upon  the  nature  and  com- 
prehensiveness of  Ethics.  They  are  largely  affected  by  the  intel- 
lectual and  social  conditions  under  which  they  were  first  formed, 
or  by  the  peculiar  views  of  the  philosophers  who  proposed  them, 
as  perhaps  must  always  be  the  case.  But  they  present  an  inter- 
esting analysis  of  the  whole  subject,  so  that  we  can  regard  each 
separate  aspect  of  ethical  problems  as  they  were  conceived  at 
different  times  and  by  different  persons.  Some  of  these  various 
definitions  are  substantially  the  following :  "  The  science  of  right 
and  wrong,"  "  the  science  of  duty,"  "  the  science  of  the  good,  or 
the  summum  bonum,"  "the  science  of  man's  moral  nature,"  "the 
science  of  conduct,"  "  the  science  of  the  conditions  of  morality," 
"the  science  of  moral  principles,"  "  the  science  of  social  ol)liga- 
tion,"  et  cetera. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

These  various  conceptions  of  the  subject  do  not  differ  essentially 
from  the  definition  we  have  adopted,  unless  it  be  in  respect  of 
scope  and  clearness.  All  of  them  include  at  least  a  part  of  the 
field  covered  by  our  own,  but  some  are  narrower,  and  some  rep- 
resent a  different  point  of  view.  For  instance,  Ethics,  as  "  the 
science  of  man's  moral  nature,"  is  the  conception  common  to 
English  thought  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, when  the  discussion  of  moral  questions  was  almost  wholly 
psychological,  and  when  men  were  concerned  with  the  problem 
whether  a  man's  individual  conscience  was  the  product  of  his 
experience  or  a  natural  endowment.  Ethics  has  a  profound 
interest  in  this  question,  but  it  is  not  the  whole  nor  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  its  field.  Again,  Ethics,  as  "  the  science  of  con- 
duct," may  not  take  sufficient  account  of  the  fact  that  a  matter 
of  important  interest  to  students  and  practical  men  alike  is  the 
relation  of  motives  and  character  to  conduct.  In  reality  we  are 
quite  as  much  concerned  with  all  those  elements  in  the  man  that 
make  him  an  object  of  admiration,  of  praise,  and  of  approval, 
as  we  are  in  his  actions,  and  hence  we  cannot  help  thinking  that 
Ethics  is  quite  as  much  a  study  of  character  as  it  is  of  conduct. 
A  similar  limitation  must  be  imposed  upon  the  conception  of 
Ethics  as  "the  science  of  the  summum  honmn"  which  denotes  the 
highest  or  the  ultimate  end  of  man's  conduct.  It  is  this  undoubt- 
edly, but  it  is  also  more  at  the  same  time.  It  is  the  science  of 
all  the  conditions  leading  to  this  end,  and  in  fact  is  much  more 
concerned  with  the  person  seeking  such  an  end  than  with  the 
result  obtained  by  any  other  agency.  This  is  the  reason  that 
we  think  of  morality  as  representing,  first,  qualities  of  character 
and  will,  and,  second,  as  the  actions  preserving  and  promoting 
social  order.  By  supplementing  the  defects,  therefore,  of  each 
traditional  definition  by  the  excellences  of  the  other,  we  obtain  a 
complete  account  of  the  complex  subject  with  which  we  have  to 
deal.  Hence,  we  have  chosen  to  represent  it  as  occui:»ied  equally 
with  persons  and  with  things ;  with  persons  as  the  agents  in  real- 
izing an  ideal  order  of  social  action,  and  with  things  and  conduct 
as  conditions  and  elements  in  such  an  order.     For  this  reason  we 


4  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

regard  Ethics  as  the  science  of  moral  personality  and  of  moral 
good,  or  end,  one  representing  the  subject's  and  the  other  the 
object's  character. 

//.  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  ETHICS.— The  formal  defini- 
tion of  Ethics  does  not  manifest  all  of  its  distinctive  char- 
acteristics. It  merely  draws  a  general  boundary  line  between 
Ethics  and  othei*  sciences.  But  there  are  several  features  of  it 
which  still  more  clearly  mark  its  nature  and  help  us  to  under- 
stand its  meaning. 

1st.  Ethics  is  a  Science  of  .Values. — It  is,  therefore,  occupied 
with  what  we  choose  to  call  the  good  as  contrasted  with  the 
merely  trite.  Not  that  it  can  ignore,  or  leave  unnoticed  the 
field  of  truth,  but  that  the  mere  truth  about  the  general  phe- 
nomena of  nature  and  man  is  not  its  chief  object.  The  truth 
with  which  it  is  mainly  concerned  is  that  about  the  good.  The 
good  is  the  object  of  desire,  truth  is  the  object  of  the  intellect. 
In  contrast  with  fine  art  also  its  object  is  this  good  as  opposed 
to  mere  beauty.  But  it  may  take  up  both  truth  and  beauty  as 
goods,  and  in  that  way  establish  a  close  relation  between  itself 
and  other  forms  of  activity.  It  will  not  be  interested  in^them, 
hoAvever,  for  their  own  sake,  but  as  means  to  the  development 
and  perfection  of  man.  And  again  it  does  not  look  at  facts  and 
events  with  their  causes  merely  as  such.  It  seeks  to  compare 
them  and  to  distinguish  their  relative  worth  to  man  and  his 
aims  or  his  destiny.  Hence  Lotze  delight(?d  to  say  that  its  field 
was  the  ivorld  oj  worths  as  contrasted  \nth  the  world  of  facts  and 
laws  of  the  physical  sciences.  It  does  not  matter  what  form  we 
give  this  world  of  values  :  it  may  be  pleasure,  happiness,  wel- 
fare, perfection,  obedience  to  the  moral  law  for  its  own  sake,  love 
of  God,  or  any  other  end.  It  nevertheless  represents  a  function 
quite  distinct  from  the  so-called  static  and  dynamic  sciences. 
They  take  facts  as  they  ai'c  and  try  to  determine  their  laws  and 
their  causes.  They  consider  them  as  effects  to  be  explained  by 
antecedent  facts.  They  do  not  care  for  their  worth  to  mankind. 
]jut  etliics  must  reduce  them  to  a  scale  of  values,  and  assuming 
that  man   is  al)le  to  modifv  the  fi)rccs  of  nature,  must  indicate 


INTRODUCTION  5 

those  particular  facts  and  objects  which  have  the  greater  value 
to  man.  Honesty,  veracity,  chastity,  politeness,  friendship,  jus- 
tice, and  all  the  virtues  represent  the  sense  of  value  which  we 
impose  upon  certain  courses  of  conduct  as  compared  with  their 
opposites,  and  this  without  regard  to  the  mode  of  explaining 
such  phenomena.  Hence,  besides  looking  at  facts  as  events  in 
the  world,  Ethics  looks  at  their  worth  with  a  view  either  to 
adjusting  them  in  the  future  to  man's  development,  or  to  his  own 
adjustment  to  them.  Ethics  thus  acts  as  a  judge  over  the 
world's  order  rather  than  as  a  mere  observer  of  it. 

2d.  Ethics  is  the  Science  of  the  Ideal  as  Contrasted  with  the 
Actual. — This  characteristic  or  function  is  closely  allied  to  the 
previous  one.  The  sense  of  worth  or  value  is  a  condition  both 
of  perceiving  and  realizing  the  ideal.  By  the  ideal  we  mean  a 
better  state  of  being  or  existence  than  we  feel  has  actually  been 
realized.  Thus,  we  think  that  a  better  condition  of  justice,  a 
greater  degree  of  equality,  a  higher  development  of  civic  virtue 
might  exist  than  actually  does  exist.  "We  may  see  about  us  a 
bad,  or  even  the  worst  possible  world  where  vice  and  sin  reign 
supreme,  and  yet  conceive  and  long  for  a  purer  and  more  per- 
fect order.  This  is  conceiving  the  ideal.  Xow  we  must  first  be 
able  to  realize  the  sense  of  value  before  we  shall  be  conscious  of 
an  ideal.  But  in  distinguishing  values  we  may  not  go  beyond 
the  actual  order  of  the  world.  We  may  only  decide  the  scale  of 
preference  between  events  as  they  occur.  But  to  idealize  a 
world  is  to  set  up  a  possible  state  of  existence,  perhaps  wholly  in 
contrast  with  the  present,  which  it  is  sought  to  realize  by  indi- 
vidual or  social  effort.  The  physical  sciences  do  nothing  of  the 
kind.  They  explain  facts,  and  do  not  form  ideals  or  endeavor 
to  move  the  Avill  in  the  direction  of  them.  The  chief  function 
of  Ethics  is  to  do  this,  to  determine  what  is  an  ideal  existence, 
and  to  promote  its  realization. 

Another  way  of  presenting  the  same  distinction  is  that  Ethics 
treats  of  what  ought  -to  be,  not  what  is.  This  is  only  another 
statement  for  the  idea  that  actual  existence  can  never  be  made 
an  object  of  duty  unless  it  can  be  idealized.     Then  so  far  as 


6  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS  • 

events  are  not  produced  by  our  own  wills  we  can  be  only  specta- 
tors of  them.  AVe  cannot  say  that  they  ought  to  be  realized  in 
any  other  sense  than  that  they  would  be  desirable.  But  so  far 
as  what  is  represents,  only  actual  or  past  events,  it  is  merely  a 
subject  for  explanation,  and  we  cannot  say  that  it  ought  to  be 
an}'thing  else :  for  to  say  that  a  thing  ought  to  be  implies,  so  far 
as  it  is  ethical  at  all,  that  it  is  still  to  be  realized.  Hence  when 
Ethics  deals  with  what  ought  to  be,  it  is  conceiving  an  ideal 
event  or  world  which  it  aims  to  realize  by  urging  the  obligation 
and  the  possibility  of  doing  so.  No  other  science  does  this.  They 
content  themselves  within  the  limits  of  actual  facts,  and  lay  down 
no  laws,  while  Ethics,  starting  with  the  world  of  facts  goes  on  to 
assert  the  existence  of  ideal  possibilities  and  to  maintain  the 
obligation  to  realize  them.  Hume  remarked  this  distinction 
between  the  physical  and  the  moral  sciences,  and  it  is  one  of 
great  significance.  It  determines  a  difference  both  of  method 
and  of  matter  between  them,  giving  the  moral  sciences  a  com- 
plexity of  function  which  belongs  to  no  other. 

3d.  Ethics  is  a  Legislative  or  a  Normative  Science. — Not 
only  does  Ethics  distinguish  between  values,  and  form  ideals, 
but  it  imposes  an  obligation  to  respect  them.  This  obligation  is 
the  sense  of  duty,  or  Kant's  "catagorical  imperative."  This 
function  of  it  follows  directly  upon  the  other  two.  There  is  no 
use  to  feel  the  worth  of  a  certain  order  or  to  idealize  it,  if  we 
cannot  feel  that  it  ought  to  be  realized.  The  fact  that  there  are 
certain  ends,  such  as  perfection,  goodness,  happiness,  or  honesty, 
temperance,  purity,  and  the  like,  which  we  cau  and  do  feel  we 
ought  to  aim  at,  attests  the  existence  of  a  phenomenon  of  great 
importance  to  moral  science.  Under  that  conception  we  study 
what  ought  to  be,  and  then  lay  down  its  pursuit  as  a  bind- 
ing law  upon  our  natures.  Just  as  Logic,  therefore,  prescribes 
rules  for  correct  tliinking.  Ethics  prescribes  rules  for  correct  con- 
duct. It  legislates  for  the  will,  while  other  sciences  explain  for  the 
intellect.  It  is  this  characteristic  of.it  which  marks  the 
transition  to  Ethics  as  an  art,  and  which  distinguislics  its  method 
and    its   object    so    radically  from    the   natural    sciences.     In 


INTRODUCTION  7 

fact,  the  distinction  once  common  between  "  natural "  and 
"  moral "  science  was  partly  founded  upon  tliis  peculiar  charac- 
teristic of  Ethics.  It  means  that,  besides  knowing  how  man 
does  act,  we  require  to  indicate  how  he  ought  to  act,  and  what 
end  he  ought  to  pursue.  It,  therefore,  seeks  to  develop  and  to 
formulate  either  the  respect  for  virtue  or  the  constraint  that 
serves  to  regulate  the  human  will  and  to  determine  the  choice  of 
ends  and  actions  most  consistent  with  man's  highest  welfare.  It 
is  a  normative  science,  therefore,  because  it  endeavors  to  ascer- 
tain the  norms,  rules  or  maxims  which  formulate  the  right  and 
wa-ong  modes  of  conduct,  and  which  are  the  indispensable  condi- 
tions to  the  rationality  of  actions  as  causes  are  indispensable  to 
the  rationality  of  events. 

Ill  RELATION  OF  ETHICS  TO  SPECIAL  SCIENCES.— It  is 
essential  to  a  complete  definition  of  Ethics  that  we  consider  at 
least  briefly  its  relations  to  certain  special  sciences.  We  have 
compared  it  with  the  natural  sciences  in  general  and  distin- 
guished it  as  a  normative  science,  and  thus  contrasted  its  func- 
tions with  those  of  the  purely  causal  sciences.  But  it  sustains  a 
peculiar  relation  either  of  connection,  resemblance,  or  contrast, 
to  several  special  sciences — a  relation  which  helps  to  define  its 
meaning  and  content  more  clearly.  These  particular  sciences 
are  Psychology,  Logic,  -Esthetics,  Politics  and  jMetaphysics. 
Others  might  be  included,  but  they  are  not  so  important  for  our 
present  purposes,  and  hence  may  be  omitted. 

1st.  Relation  to  Psychology. — Psychology  and  Ethics  are 
closely  related,  but  may  also  be  sharply  distinguished.  Thus 
Psychology  is  the  science  of  the  phenomena  of  consciousness, 
and  Ethics  is  also  a  science  of  a  certain  portion  of  those  phe- 
nomena with  their  relation  to,  or  issue  in,  conduct.  But  both 
the  extent  of  the  field  and  the  object,  as  Avell  as  the  method  of 
the  two  sciences,  are  difierent.  Psychology  endeavors  to  show 
how  any  or  all  of  our  mental  phenomena  come  to  happen.  It 
does  not  say  whether  they  are  true  or  right.  It  investigates 
only  their  laws  and  causes.  Hence,  its  proper  functions  are 
observation,   classification   and  explanation   of  mental  events, 


8  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

including  cognition,  memory,  association,  reasoning,  emotion, 
choice,  volition,  and  subordinate  phenomena.  But  Ethics  does 
not  investigate  certain  divisions  of  these  at  all,  and  does  not  in- 
vestigate an}^  of  them  in  the  same  way,  or  with  the  same  purpose 
as  psychology ;  it  wholly  excludes  cognition,  memory,  association 
and  reasoning  from  its  domain,  and  even  when  it  includes  the  phe- 
nomena of  emotion  and  will  in  its  sphere,  it  does  so  without 
any  reference  to  explaining  them,  but  with  a  view  to  estimating 
their  value  and  relation  to  moral  development.  In  brief.  Psy- 
chology is  explanatory.  Ethics  is  legislative.  Ethics  undoubt- 
edly is  conditioned  by  Psychology — that  is,  it  assumes  the  laws 
of  mind  and  will  utilize  them  for  its  own  object,  but  it  will  not 
investigate  or  determine  them,  its  chief  function  being  to  deal 
on  the  one  hand  with  those  ideals  of  the  intellect  Avhich  deter- 
mine the  difference  between  good  and  bad,  right  and  wrong,  and 
on  the  other  with  the  problems  of  volition  and  obligation  as 
determining  whether  a  man  can  and  ought  to  aim  at  the  moral 
development  of  himself  and  others.  It  is  thus  very  sharj)ly  dis- 
tinguished from  Psychology,  while  in  a  measure  depending  upon 
it  and  occupied  in  part  with  the  same  i:)henomena, 

2d.  Relation  to  Logic. — Logic  is  also  occupied  with  mental 
phenomena,  but  with  a  more  restricted  field  of  them  than  Psy- 
chology, and  with  an  olrject  different  alike  from  Psychology  and 
Ethics.  Logic  is  occupied  only  with  the  phenomena  of  thought 
and  inference  or  reasoning.  It  thus  excludes  all  direct  concern 
with  the  primary  faculties  and  phenomena  of  intelligence,  and 
also  those  of  emotion  and  volition.  But  even  when  it  considers 
those  of  reasoning,  it  makes  no  attempt  to  explain  them.  It  shows 
those  which  are  valid,  and  those  that  are  not  valid.  In  other 
words,  it  is  the  science  of  the  formal  laws  of  thought,  or  the  laws 
of  correct  thinking.  Its  function  has  thus  a  close  connection  with 
that  of  Ethics,  only  it  is  occupied  with  reasoning,  while  Ethics 
is  occupied  with  volition  or  conduct.  Logic  deals  with  the  ideals 
of  the  intellect,  and  so  establishes  the  laws  by  which  we  do  and 
mud  reason  if  we  tliink  correctly.  Etiiics  deals  with  the  ideals 
of  the  will,  and  so  establishes  the  laws  by  which  wc  do  or  ought 


INTRODUCTION  9 

to  act,  if  we  act  rightly.  Logic  employs  the  imdei-standing ; 
Ethics  employs  the  conscience — one  the  logical,  the  other  the 
moral  reason.  Furthermore,  Logic  seems  to  impose  certain  obli- 
gations, and  in  this  respect  resembles  Ethics.  But  the  obliga- 
tions are  not  to  obey  the  laws  of  thought,  for  we  must  obey  them 
whether  we  will  or  not.  Its  obligations  or  duties,  however,  are 
to  see  that,  when  we  do  think,  the  special  contents  of  thought 
conform  to  those  laws.  The  obligations  of  Ethics,  on  the  other 
hand,  assume  that  we  can  disobey  conscience,  that  we  are  free  to 
do  or  not  to  do,  as  we  please.  The  laws  of  Logic  are  the  neces- 
sary laws  of  reason ;  those  of  Ethics  are  the  moral  laws  of  the 
will.  In  the  former  case  the  "  laws  "  are  statements  of  the  uni- 
formity of  actual  phenomena,  in  the  latter  the  "  laws "  are  in- 
junctions to  realize  ideal  phenomena.  Both  of  them,  however, 
discuss  the  laws  of  correct  action — one  the  correct  action  of 
thought,  the  other  of  volition.  Both  determine  what  is  valid, 
but  Logic  determines  what  is  valid  in  reasoning.  Ethics  what  is 
valid  in  conduct. 

3d.  Relation  to  Aesthetics. — The  relation  between  Aesthetics 
and  Ethics  is  also  a  close  one.  Aesthetics  is  the  science  of  the 
laws  of  beauty,  and  defines  the  sphere  of  the  fine  arts.  Its  psy- 
chological field  is  the  emotions,  and  these  are  the  phenomena 
that  connect  the  subject  with  Ethics.  Aesthetics  estimates 
values,  but  they  are  the  values  of  art  objects,  of  those  objects 
which  appeal  to  the  sense  of  beauty.  It  is  not  a  science  of  per- 
sonal worth,  or  of  conduct,  not  even  of  what  is  called  moral 
beauty,  which  is  an  expression  borrowed  by  analogy  from  art  to 
indicate  the  satisfaction  we  feel  in  the  presence  of  moral  perfec- 
tions. But  its  sole  object  is  impersonal  worth  in  terms  of  beauty 
as  opposed  to  utility,  which  is  rather  the  object  of  economics. 
Ethics,  on  the  other  hand,  is  occupied  \nth  personal  worth  as 
expressed  in  perfection  of  will  and  conduct.  Virtue  as  opposed 
to  both  beauty  and  utility  is  its  object.  Both  sciences,  however, 
depend  upon  the  same  emotions  and  idealizing  instincts,  and  are 
so  closely  connected  in  this  respect  that  cultivation  of  the  one 
aflTects  results  of  the  other,  though  one  cannot  be  a  substitute  for 


lO  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  other  iu  its  effects  on  the  character.  Aesthetics  aid  moraliza- 
4;ion,  but  is  uot  its  equivalent.  Ethics  purifies  art,  but  will  not 
produce  it. 

4th.  Relation  to  Politics. — The  relation  between  Ethics  and 
Politics  is  closer  than  in  any  other  case.  Both  sciences  have  to 
deal  with  human  action  and  institutions,  and  thus  seem  to  be 
occupied  with  the  same  field.  But  the  distinction  between  them 
is  clear  in  spite  of  this  fact.  Ethics  in  its  broadest  sense  compre- 
hends Politics,  because  Avhatever  Politics  adopts  must  first  be 
granted  in  the  court  of  Ethics.  But  in  its  narrower  sense  it  is 
co-ordinate  with  it.  These  facts  make  Ethics  in  its  more  compre- 
hensive import  co-extensive  with  Sociology  ;  in  its  restricted 
import  a  co-ordinate  species  w^ith  Politics.  The  definition  oi 
each  will  make  the  relation  clear.  Politics  is  generally  defined 
as  the  science  of  government.  This  comprehends  all  the  institu- 
tions and  laws  that  are  instrumental  in  the  regulation  of  men's 
conduct  toward  each  other.  But  for  the  sake  of  an  effective 
comparison  with  Ethics  it  should  be  defined  as  the  science  of  the 
regulation  and  restriction  of  human  conduct  by  law.  It  thus 
seeks  to  determine  how  certain  courses  of  action  may  be  artifi- 
cially induced  or  prevented.  It  aims  by  law  to  establish  social 
order,  or  a  condition  of  things  Avhich  the  unorganized  wills  of 
men  would  not  spontaneously  produce.  It  is,  therefore,  the  sci- 
ence of  the  artificial  limitations  of  human  liberty  in  the  protec- 
tion of  rights  and  the  regulation  of  external  conduct.  On  the 
other  hand,  Ethics  is  the  science  of  what  a  man  can  and  ought  to  do, 
whether  government  exists  or  not.  It  determines  the  justice  and 
validity  of  all  political  principles,  but  it  does  not  investigate  the 
means  of  putting  them  into  force.  It  is,  therefore,  concerned 
with  the  phenomena  of  free  action,  or  the  voluntary  choice  of 
the  good.  Hence,  in  contrast  with  Politics,  it  may  be  defined  as 
the  science  of  the  extension  of  human  liberty,  or  of  those  condi- 
tions under  which  morality  is  realized  without  a  resort  to  civil 
law.  For  tliis  reason  it  is  strictly  the  science  of  the  conditions 
under  wliich  morality  l)ecomes  internal  as  well  as  external.  Pol- 
itics stops  short  with  the  attainment  of  external  good,  an  order 


INTRODUCTION 


11 


in  which  free  morality  is  possible,  though  it  does  not  and  cannot 
cfFect  this  morality.  Ethics  aims  with  this  to  attain  internal 
good  or  virtue,  and  consequently  is  concerned  with  the  "  good 
will"  as  well  as  with  good  conduct  externally  considered. 
But  it  deals  with  morality  only  as  it  is  a  product  of  free 
will,  while  Politics  subordinates  freedom  to  the  attainment 
of  social  order. 

The  general  position  of  Ethics  in  relation  to  the  sciences  which 
pertain  to  man  is  apparent  from  the  following  tabular  view  which 
begins  with  Anthropology  as  the  most  comprehensive  term  for  the 
knowledge  of  man.  Sociology  appears  in  it  as  the  general  sci- 
ence of  all  customs,  habits,  institutions  and  conduct  affecting  his 
development,  in  so  far  as  they  are  moral  and  social  products  of 
the  will : 


Anthropology 


Physiology 
Psychology 

Aesthetics 
Sociology 


f  Structural. 
\  Functional, 
f  Empirical. 
1  Metaphysical, 
f  Painting. 
J   Sculpture. 
I   Music. 
[  Architecture. 

{History. 
Politics. 
Economics. 
Ethics. 


Aesthetics  also  deals  -svith  products  of  the  will,  but  the  object 
is  not  immediately  moral.  Its  subdivisions  represent  those  pro- 
ducts which  appeal  to  taste  or  the  sense  of  beauty,  not  to  con- 
science as  the  actions  or  disposition  with  which  Ethics  deals. 
The  distinction  then  between  Aesthetics  and  Sociology,  though 
both  deal  with  products  of  will,  is  that  the  former  concerns 
material  products  affecting  the  artistic  part  of  our  nature,  and 
the  latter  all  actions  and  institutions  affecting  human  welfare 
social  and  moral.  Economics  also  represents  products  of  will, 
but  these  are  the  material  products  necessary  to  subsistaucc,  or 
at  least  having  an  exchangeable  value  determined  by  the  cost  of 
production.  Hence  it  is  the  science  of  wealth.  It  treats  of 
utility  values,  as  Aesthetics  treats  of  the  artistic,  and  Ethics  of 


12  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  moral  values.  The  actions  involved,  however,  like  those  of 
Politics,  are  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  and  authority  of  Ethics, 
though  in  respect  to  object  matter  the  several  sciences  can  be 
classed  as  co-ordinate  with  each  other. 

5th.  Relation  to  Metaphysics. — The  connection  between  Ethics 
and  Metaphysics  is  not  so  close  as  between  Ethics  and  Politics. 
The  reason  for  this  is  that  they  are  not  co-ordinate  sciences. 
Metaphysics  is  the  science  of  the  nature  of  reality  as  contrasted 
with  the  laws  of  phenomena.  It  thus,  in  a  measure  at  least, 
conditions  the  complete  results  of  all  sciences,  and  so  of  Ethics 
among  them.  But  these  sciences  simply  assume  the  ultimate 
princii^les  of  Metaphysics  without  so  much  as  defining,  investi- 
gating or  validating  them.  In  Ethics  we  take  for  granted 
that  there  is  some  reality  besides  the  mere  phenomena  whose 
laws  and  value  we  study,  but  we  do  not  investigate  its  nature  by 
ethical  methods.  But  if  the  possibility  of  Ethics,  as  a  science, 
of  other  than  purely  natural  phenomena,  or  necessarily  deter- 
mined events,  is  raised,  we  must  go  to  Metaphysics  to  decide 
the  matter,  and  in  this  respect  Ethics  is  closely  dependent  upon 
Methaphysics.  But  for  the  facts  and  for  the  value  of  moral 
phenomena.  Ethics  is  wholly  independent  of  metaphysical  inquiry, 
and  can  go  about  determining  the  laws  and  duties  of  moral  life, 
and  the  validity  of  moral  principles,  without  first  solving  any  of 
the  metaphysical  problems  of  reality.  But  when  certain  con- 
troversies are  raised,  such  as  the  freedom  of  the  will,  the  nature 
of  consciousness,  the  relation  of  materialism  to  moral  theories,  the 
solution  of  them  must  be  deferred  to  Metaphysics.  This  shows 
that  the  two  sciences  may  insensibly  run  into  each  other,  although 
for  practical  purposes  they  may  be  kept  distiuct. 

6th.  Relation  to  the  Physical  Sciences. — The  relation  is  not 
close  in  these  cases.  Both  the  method  and  the  object  matter  of 
the  physical  and  moral  sciences  arc  different.  All  the  physical 
sciences  treat  of  natural  phenomena,  and  their  causes  as  opposed 
to  phenomena  of  will  and  their  value.  But  Ethics  cannot  dis- 
pense with  tlieir  conclusions.  It  is  interested  in  the  laws  of 
nature  and  the  results  of  physical  science  as  limitations  upon 


INTRODUCTION  13 

arbitrary  conduct  and  as  conditions  of  right  adjustment.  But 
it  does  not  deal  with  them  as  representing  the  ideal  order  of  things 
to  be  realized  by  the  human  will.  It  merely  assumes  them  and 
endeavors  to  establish  an  order  indeijendent,  but  not  in  conflict 
with  them.  Hence,  while  all  the  sciences  may  be  tributary  to 
Ethics  in  respect  to  results,  this  is  neither  their  direct  object  nor 
the  principle  field  of  Ethics.  Its  primary  object  is  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  them  in  as  much  as  it  determines  what  ought  to  be  in 
contrast  with  what  merely  is  or  occurs  without  volitional  inter- 
position. 

7th.  Relation  to  Religion. — The  relation  between  Ethics,  or, 
rather,  morality  and  religion,  is  not  easy  to  determine  in  a  brief 
discussion.  The  subject  is  a  very  complex  one,  and  must  be  de- 
ferred for  treatment  in  a  separate  chapter.  It  is  sufficient  to  re- 
mark at  present  that  in  some  respects  they  are  very  closely  re- 
lated, and  in  others  they  are  wholly  distinct  and  independent 
of  each  other.  This  will  be  brought  out  when  the  subject  is 
more  fully  discussed  in  a  later  chapter. 

IV.  DIVISIONS  OF  ETHICS.— The  general  division  of  Ethics 
is  into  Theoretical  and  Practical.  This  is  made  according  to  the 
distinction  between  its  explanatory  and  its  legislative  or  norma- 
tive functions.  While  the  subject  is,  in  general,  distinguished 
from  the  physical  and  historical  sciences  by  its  normative  or 
regulative  functions,  it  is  also  connected  with  them  in  having  a 
field  for  the  application  of  explanatory  methods.  That  is  to  say, 
there  are  pheuomena  in  the  field  of  Ethics  which  require  to  be' 
analyzed  and  explained,  or  reduced  to  logical  and  scientific 
order.  Hence,  we  have  the  theoretical  function  of  the  science 
concerned  with  the  nature,  relations  and  value  of  the  ideal.  On 
the  other  hand.  Ethics  does  not  stop  with  explanation  of  these. 
It  goes  on  to  lay  down  obligations,  laws  or  maxims  for  the  regu- 
lation of  conduct,  and  to  prescribe  the  means  of  attaining  the 
ends  recognized  by  theoretical  Ethics.  Consequently  there  is  the 
division  of  practical  Ethics.  Theoretical  Ethics  employs  the 
explanatory  or  scientific  method ;  practical  Ethics,  the  norma- 
tive or  regulative  method. 


14  ELE2IENTS  OF  ETHICS 

V.  SCOPE  OF  ETHICS.— The  division  of  EtWcs  into  theoreti- 
cal and  practical,  defines,  in  a  general  way,  the  scope  of  the  sub- 
ject. But  it  does  not  present  the  particular  conceptions  with 
which  it  has  to  deal,  nor  the  problems  which  it  is  expected  to 
solve.  In  order,  therefore,  to  understand  the  many  questions 
which  Ethics  has  to  answer,  we  must  call  attention  to  the  range 
of  phenomena  that  come,  more  or  less  directly  and  indirectly, 
under  its  notice. 

1st.  Man's  Moral  Nature. — Some  psychological  analysis  is 
always  preliminary  to  the  study  of  Ethics,  or  is  assumed  in  it, 
and  it  often  requires  to  be  Considered  for  other  purposes  than 
explaining  its  phenomena.  Hence,  before  laying  down  any  rules 
for  conduct,  we  must  know  something  of  the  nature  of  the  being 
to  which  those  rules  appeal.^  This  moral  nature  consists  of  all  the 
mental  capacities  and  j^henomena  which  are  essentially  connected 
with  conduct.  These  are  judgment,  conscience,  emotion,  desire 
and  volition,  with  subordinate  phenomena,  and  they  represent  the 
psychology  of  Ethics.  All  of  these  come  under  notice  in 
determining  the  meaning  and  contents  of  what  is  called 
moral. 

2d.  The  Genesis  of  Moral  Ideas  and  Faculties. — Besides  the 
nature  of  moral  phenomena,  we  are  interested  in  their  origin. 
This  is  the  evolutionistic  problem,  or  the  application  of  the 
theory  of  development  to  morality  and  moral  faculties.  It  in- 
cludes all  the  various  influences — physical,  political,  religious  and 
social — that  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  man's  conduct  and 
the  formation  of  his  character.  These  influences  are  summar- 
ized in  the  notion  of  environment,  which  expresses  a  whole 
group  of  external  agencies  limiting  and  determining  man's 
nature  and  conduct.  In  the  development  of  man  and  his 
morality,  we  have  to  look  at  his  whole  history  and  the  external 
forces  affecting  his  will.  But  while  these  have  much  to  do  with 
the  particular  codes  of  rules  he  has  adopted,  they  do  not  rcjire- 
sent  all  that  the  ethical  i)roblem  desires  to  solve.  They  only 
serve  to  show  and  to  exj)lain  the  wide  divergence  of  conceptions 
in  regard  to  morality,  or  the  inequalities  of  men  in  their  moral 


INTRODUCTION  15 

development.  But  the  problem  of  genesis  is  nevertheless  one  of 
the  most  important  in  Ethics. 

3d.  The  Validity  of  Moral  Principles. — Independently  of  the 
problem  of  the  genesis  of  morality  comes  the  validity  of  its  rules 
and  injunctions.  This  validity  of  a  moral  principle  does  not 
rest  upon  the  manner  in  which  it  came  to  be  recognized,  upon  its 
origin,  but  upon  its  use  in  the  economy  of  the  world.  In  fact, 
the  most  important  function  of  Ethics  is  to  determine  this  char- 
acteristic of  a  moral  maxim,  to  justify  it,  to  show  that  it  holds 
good  whatever  the  accidents  of  its  historical  origin.  Thus,  be- 
sides learning  how  respect  for  life,  respect  for  property,  chastity, 
honesty,  temperance,  came  to  be  recognized  as  obligatory,  we  wish 
to  know  the  ultimate  ground  upon  which  they  rest,  and  this 
takes  us  beyond  all  questions  of  history  and  origin,  and  requires 
us  to  ascertain  the  relation  between  the  conduct  or  attitude  of 
will  prescribed  and  the  ultimate  end  which  mankind  are  enjoined 
to  realize. 

4th.  The  Determination  of  the  Good. — Man,  in  so  far  as  he 
is  a  rational  or  intelligent  being  at  all,  always  acts  with  refer- 
ence to  some  end.  This  end  is  called  his  good,  or  what  he  would 
regard  as  such.  But  he  is  always  supposed  to  have  one  ultimate 
end  or  good  to  which  he  subordinates  all  others.  This  is  called 
his  highest  good,  or  summwn  bomcm.  Hence,  Ethics  must  study 
the  highest  end  which  men  actually  seek ;  and  if  this  comes  short 
of  the  ideal  good  for  all  persons,  it  must  determine  the  good 
which  ought  to  be  sought.  The  object  in  determining  this  fact 
is  to  provide  a  criterion  for  measuring  the  worth  of  a  man's  con- 
duct. As  a  man's  ultimate  purpose  in  life,  so  is  his  conduct. 
If  one  is  good,  other  things  being  equal,  the  other  is  good,  and 
vice  versa,  and  as  Ethics  is  supremely  interested  in  the  merits 
and  demerits  of  conduct,  it  must  determine  the  nature  of  the 
Highest  Good,  or  the  ideal  object  for  man's  pursuit.  This  may 
be  called  the  objective  prol)Iem  of  Ethics. 

5th.  The  Explanation  of  Virtue. — This,  in  contrast  with  the 
previous  question,  may  be  called  the  subjective  problem  of  Ethics. 
Not  only  do  we  judge  conduct  by  its  relation  to  the  ideal  or  the 


16  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

good,  but  also  by  the  manner  or  motive  with  which  it  is  per- 
formed. We  want  to  know  not  only  the  fact  that  a  man  adjusts 
himself  to  environment,  or  conforms  to  the  rule  of  the  good  as 
an  end,  but  also  that  he  will  do  this  without  regard  to  the  com- 
pelling influence  of  circumstances,  that  he  makes  this  the  volun- 
tary end  of  life.  Hence,  Ethics  is  concerned  in  more  than  exter- 
nal conformity  to  its  rules.  It  not  only  wants  to  see  honesty, 
veracity,  temperance,  obedience  to  the  law  practiced,  but  it 
wants  to  see  them  resj)ected  and  obeyed  without  the  need  of 
appealing  to  force,  or  merely  selfish  interests  to  realize  them. 
Ethics  wishes  also  to  assert  and  maintain  the  imj)ortance  of  the 
"good  will,"  the  disposition  to  pursue  the  good  rationally  and 
without  regard  to  the  changes  of  circumstances  and  exemption 
from  police  vigilance.  It  is,  therefore,  occupied  with  the  phen- 
omena of  character,  and  endeavors  to  determine  the  constituent 
elements  of  virtue  as  distinguished  from  merely  objective 
good. 

6th.  The  Determination  of  Specific  Duties. — This  is  partic- 
ularly the  function  of  practical  Ethics,  which  especially  investi- 
gates the  means,  as  theoretical  Ethics  determines  the  end,  of  con- 
duct. It  thus  classifies  the  various  forms  of  virtue  and  good 
which  it  is  sought  to  realize.  The  highest  good  and  virtue  are 
not  always  to  be  attained  in  the  same  way.  There  are  various 
relations  in  life  that  require  express  formulation  of  the  moral 
law  to  suit  a  certain  group  of  phenomena.  Thus,  it  is  necessary 
to  recognize  the  nature  and  distinction  between  justice  and 
benevolence,  the  nature  and  obligations  of  veracity,  honesty, 
chastity.  The  various  relations  and  conditions  of  life  which  in- 
volve these  virtues,  the  individual,  the  family,  and  society,  all 
come  under  investigation  as  determining  for  us  certain  specific 
duties,  and  measuring  our  obligation  to  fulfil  them.  Besides 
there  will  lie  the  questions  concerning  the  proper  and  cfiective 
method  of  infiueucing  the  human  will,  the  educational  and  social 
agencies  necessary  to  perfect  character,  and  all  institutions  that 
are  helpful  to  the  practice  of  virtue.  In  this  field,  then.  Ethics 
will  investigate  the  ground  of  specific  duties,  as  distinct  from  the 


INTRODUCTION  17 

general  principle  of  morality,  and  the  motive  forces  for  insuring 
their  fullilmeut. 

VI.  SUMMARY — lu  this  introductory  discussion  we  have  as- 
certained that  Ethics  is  a  science  of  character  and  of  conduct,  of 
good  will  and  good  results  in  human  action.  Its  chief  character- 
istics are  that  it  investigates  what  is  man's  highest  good,  and  that 
it  tries  to  ascertain  the  principles  upon  which  this  can  be  ration- 
ally pursued  while  exercising  the  functions  of  a  normative  or 
regulative  science  and  art.  Lastly,  we  found  that  it  is  very 
closely  related  to  several  other  sciences,  and  is  occupied  with  all 
the  problems  of  man's  moral  nature,  its  genesis,  meaning  and 
value  or  authority,  conscience,  the  good,  virtue,  freedom,  duty, 
and  whatever  is  contained  in  a  moral  ideal. 

References. — For  the  nature  of  Ethics  the  following  books  may  be  con- 
sulted :  Mackenzie :  Manual  of  Ethics,  Chapter  I.  ;  Bowne :  Principles  of 
Ethics,  Introduction ;  Martineau :  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  First  and 
Second  Prefaces.  Second  Edition ;  Schurman :  The  Ethical  Import  of  Dar- 
winism, Chapter  I. ;  Porter:  Elements  of  Moral  Science,  Introduction,  pp. 
1-17  ;  Alexander  (S) :  Moral  Order  and  Progress,  Introduction,  pp.  1-19. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   OEIGIN  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL   PEOBLEMS 

INTBODUCTOBY.— 'Rejection  upon  the  nature  and  obliga- 
tion of  morality  began  as  early,  or  nearly  as  early,  as  specu- 
lation upon  the  universe.  In  fact  it  is  difficult  to  keep  the  two 
modes  of  thinking  apart  from  each  other.  Man  has  as  much 
natural  interest  in  his  practical  relation  to  the  world  or  to  a 
Supreme  Being,  and  the  limitations  which  these  agencies  may 
impose  upon  his  will  as  he  has  curiosity  about  the  causes  of 
things.  He  will  always,  therefore,  associate  reflection  upon 
his  conduct  with  reflection  upon  the  nature  of  things.  In  a 
very  large  measure  what  he  thinks  about  his  duties,  what  they 
are  in  particular,  will  be  determined  by  the  opinions  he  maintains 
about  the  universe  and  his  destiny  in  it.  Even  if  he  wishes  for 
certain  purposes  to  keep  these  two  phases  of  thought  apart  from 
each  other,  he  will  find  that  he  cannot  wholly  effect  this  result, 
but  that  his  ideas  of  morality  are  either  directly  or  indirectly 
molded  by  his  ultimate  views  about  the  world  and  its  meaning 
for  him.  This  tendency  very  early  gave  rise  to  ethical  reflection, 
and  even  the  earliest  philosophers,  whose  opinions  it  is  safe  to 
suppose  were  not  mere  myths,  are  accredited  with  many  wise 
saws  about  the  duties  of  man.  These  proverbs  cling  to  their 
persons  ancl  history  as  a  part  of  their  philosophic  opinions,  and 
indicate  the  same  origin  for  ethical  as  for  metaphysical  specu- 
lation. But  there  is  not  time  or  space  to  discuss  this  matter  in  a 
brief  outline  of  its  history,  and  we  can  only  allude  to  it  while 
characterizing  the  first  period  of  moral  reflection  which  we  have 
to  notice  as  laying  down  the  line  of  all  subsequent  speculations 
upon  moral  problems.  We  may  conveniently  adopt  the  usual 
division  of  periods  into  Ancient,  3Iedi(jeval  and  Modern,     Each  of 

18 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  19 

these  represents  a  typical  mode  of  thought,  determining  the 
ideals  and  codes  of  Ethics  applicable  to  its  time. 

/.  ANCIENT  ETHICS.— This  will  comprise  the  period  and 
characteristics  of  Greek  thouglit.  The  one  characteristic  of  this 
whole  period,  so  far  as  it  affected  the  moral  consciousness  of 
Greece,  was  the  overwhelming  sense  of  subjection  to  poAver,  and 
the  necessity  of  conforming  to  its  laws  while  longing  for  freedom 
or  exemption  from  the  penalties  which  that  power  could  inflict 
for  resistance  to  it.  Religious  and  philosophic  speculation, 
aided  by  the  reflex  influence  from  the  necessity  of  strong  govern- 
ment, emphasized  man's  subordination  to  supreme  powers,  which 
were  either  conceived  as  impersonal,  or  as  wholly  divested  of  a 
benevolent  interest  in  the  world.  This  state  of  mind  favored 
ethical  codes  based  upon  fear  or  obedience,  with  as  little  respect 
as  possible  for  the  power  to  be  obeyed.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
struggle  for  political  freedom,  with  its  ideals,  re-acted  upon  the 
speculative  conception,  and  encouraged  a  certain  measure  of 
libertinism  in  the  individual,  and  expressed  the  natural  desire  to 
be  emancipated  from  the  restrictions  of  law,  which  was  in  reality 
only  the  obverse  side  of  the  absolutism  at  the  basis  of  both 
philosophy  and  politics.  Fate  and  Nemesis  were  thus  one  side 
of  Greek  moral  consciousness,  and  libertinism  the  other.  Both 
are  reflected  very  clearly  in  the  drama,  and  mark  the  two  types 
of  character,  the  ascetic  and  his  opposite,  which  are  reflected  in 
Greek  speculative  Ethics.  This  period  again  is  subdivided  into 
seveml  subordinate  tendencies  according  as  one  or  the  other 
aspect  of  it  predominated.  They  will  be  considered  briefly  in 
their  order. 

1st.  The  Pre-Socratic  Period. — The  first  stage  of  this  period 
was  the  religious,  and  it  merged  into  the  philosophic  without 
changing  the  conception  of  man's  relation  to  the  world.  The 
religious  attitude  of  mind,  however,  was  the  general  one,  and 
gave  the  whole  period  its  prevailing  tone.  This  was  that  the 
customs  and  laws  binding  on  men  were  the  decrees  of  the  gods. 
In  philosophic  parlance  these  were  the  laws  of  nature,  in  so  far 
as  they  represented  the  fixed  conditions  to  which  it  was  necessary 


20  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

to  conform  one's  life.  But  the  religious  mind  and  political 
interests  placed  its  last  defence  of  existing  codes  of  conduct  in 
the  will  of  the  gods.  This  was  the  divine  will  theory  of  moral 
obligation.  But  two  influences  served  to  weaken  all  the  pre- 
suppositions of  such  a  view.  They  were,  first,  the  unideal  char- 
acter of  the  gods,  and  second,  the  rise  of  scepticism  in  regard  to 
their  existence.  It  was  their  unideal  character  that  gave  the 
sting  to  scepticism.  But  in  criticising  the  religious  conception, 
with  its  doctrine  of  arbitrary  power,  the  sceptical  school  based 
its  attack  mainly  upon  its  doubts  about  the  existence  of  the 
gods.  It  did  not  deny  the  possible  relation  between  the  gods 
and  moral  law,  but  cut  up  by  the  roots  the  fact  of  it  on  the 
ground  that  such  powers  did  not  exist.  The  force  of  their 
argument,  hoAvever,  rested  chiefly  upon  the  growing  dissatisfac- 
tion with  anthropomorphic  polytheism,  and  prejudiced  neither 
the  philosophic  conception  of  monotheism  and  pantheism,  nor 
the  purified  conception  of  a  more  refined  religious  consciousness 
which  endowed  the  divine  with  benevolence  as  well  as  power. 
But  in  connection  with  the  low  ideals  of  Greek  life,  the  political 
struggle  for  liberty  and  the  increasing  scepticism  of  the  age,  the 
belief  that  the  customs  and  laws,  which  were  the  moral  rules  of 
that  age,  were  the  expressed  will  of  the  gods,  was  dissolved. 
That  was  the  negative  work  of  the  sophists  and  the  sceptical 
school.  But  they  were  not  content  with  mere  destruction. 
They  also  presented  a  positive  and  constructive  theory  of  moral- 
ity as  it  was  then  understood.  This  consisted  of  two  claims. 
First,  that  all  law,  moral  and  political,  was  conventional;  and 
second,  that  the  good  which  all  men  seek  was  j^leasure.  The 
first  of  these  elements  merely  substituted  the  human  for  the 
divine  will ;  the  conception  was  the  same  as  the  theological  view, 
but  the  source  Avas  different,  and  the  one  merit  Avhich  it  pos- 
sessed was  that  it  explained  both  the  origin  of  positive  law  and 
custom,  and  the  practice  of  Greek  life  in  regard  to  its  submis- 
sion, up  to  that  time  at  least,  to  power,  AA'hether  aristocratic  or 
democratic.  But  this  radical  doctrine  offended  both  the  relig- 
ious and  the  undeveloped  moral  consciousness  of  the  best  minds, 


DEVELOPMEXT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  21 

and  was  the  signal  for  a  reconstruction.  The  second  elemeot 
indicated  quite  as  radical  a  change  in  the  point  of  view.  The 
theological  conception  based  morality  upon  external  authority. 
Virtue  in  its  conception  consisted  merely  in  obedience  to  the 
powers  capable  of  making  their  Avill  eJSective.  Merit  consisted 
in  submission.  But  in  making  the  good  pleasure  instead  of 
conformity  to  power  or  authority,  the  change  was  from  a  theo- 
logical to  an  anthropological  f)oint  of  view.  It  was  the  incep- 
tion of  an  internal  authority,  but  instead  of  expressing  morality 
in  terms  of  obedience,  its  sanction  was  found  in  the  end  sought 
by  the  agent.  The  subject,  not  the  object,  determined  the  course 
of  action  to  be  chosen.  Hence,  here  began  also  the  value  of  the 
doctrine  of  human  liberty,  which  appears  as  a  part  of  ethical 
doctrine  in  Aristotle.  But  the  chief  contribution  to  ethical 
doctrine,  made  by  asserting  that  pleasure,  is  the  good,  was  that 
conduct  has  its  qualities  determined  by  the  end,  or  result  aimed 
at  by  the  will,  though  the  Sophists  would  probably  not  have  dis- 
tinguished between  the  instinctive  and  the  I'ational  attainment 
of  this  end.  They  were  satisfied  with  taking  the  good  out  of  the 
han^ls  of  authority,  though  explaining  positive  law  by  convention, 
and  placing  the  good  in  the  object  realized  by  the  individual. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  both  the  psychological  and  the  utili- 
tarian theories  of  moralitv. 

2d.  The  Socratic  Period. — This  period  of  ethical  reflection 
represents  an  entire  departure  from  the  doctrine  that  morality  is 
the  product  of  mere  authority,  human  or  divine — that  is,  a  cre- 
ation of  will,  and  in  its  place  substitutes  the  idea  that  the  merit 
■f  conduct  is  in  some  way  a  part  of  the  nature  of  things,  and  that 
it  is  determined  wholly  by  the  relations  of  the  will  to  this  as  an 
end.  Consequently  the  whole  Socratic  movement,  iuvolvLag 
Socrates,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  with  their  minor  schools,  starts  with 
an  analysis  of  human  nature,  the  intention  being  to  find  in  the 
individual  man,  not  in  the  power  of  any  one  over  him,  the  reasons 
or  grounds  of  morality.  Man's  nature  as  a  rational  being  was 
investigated,  and  the  end  prescribed  by  that  nature  or  by  reason 
was  determined   as  the  true  ground  for  the  merit  of  conduct. 


22  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

The  period,  therefore,  represented  the  development  of  maturer 
ideas  of  human  freedom,  especially  because  the  sentiment  of  au- 
thority was  discredited.  This  was  the  effect  of  Sophistic  doctrine, 
which  sought  only  to  explain,  not  to  justify,  customary  morality 
by  convention,  and  hence  the  next  problem  was  to  show  either 
the  rational  ground  upon  which  existing  codes  rested,  or  the  ideal 
end  which  determined  goodness  independently  of  authority.  This 
was  found,  according  to  the  Socratic  school,  in  an  object  of  con- 
sciousness, cognizable  by  the  subject,  and  not  merely  enforced 
action  in  conformity  to  the  dictates  of  an  arbitrary  power.  The 
main  difference  between  this  movement  and  that  of  the  Sophists  is 
found  in  two  characteristics.  The  first  of  these  was  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  sceptical  spirit  and  method,  and  the  second  was  the 
purification  of  the  ideal  represented  in  the  reconstructive  effort 
of  the  Sophists.  There  was  a  general  tendency  to  abandon  the 
idea  of  pleasure  as  the  highest  good,  and  to  substitute  for  it  either 
some  other  end,  or  to  qualify  it  by  wisdom,  or  the  rational  pursuit 
of  the  good.  The  movement,  however,  represents  three  different 
phases  of  development. 

1.  Socrates  and  the  Minor  Socratics. — The  Sophists  had 
claimed  to  be  teachers  of  virtue,  but  this  claim  was  accompanied 
by  so  much  scepticism,  by  the  cultivation  of  so  much  personal  in- 
terest, and  the  want  of  due  moral  earnestness,  that  it  did  little  or 
nothing  to  regenerate  the  moral  consciousness  of  Greece.  It  was 
only  a  signal  for  the  better  spirits  to  take  hold  of  the  problem 
seriously.  This  more  earnest  attempt  at  reconstruction  was  be- 
gun by  Socrates,  and  his  character,  life  and  death  have  placed 
him  among  the  foremost  of  the  great  men  of  the  world,  and  all  be- 
cause, besides  doing  much  for  scientific  method,  he  aroused  a 
strong  interest  in  moral  questions. 

Socrates  did  not  directly  attack  the  ethical  theories  of  the 
Sophists.  He  said  nothing  al)out  the  authority  of  the  gods,  nor 
did  he  have  anything  to  say  about  the  doctrine  of  convention. 
He  merely  turned  the  logic  and  dialectical  method  of  scepticism 
upon  itself,  and  while  seeming  to  be  mainly  interested  in  a  theory 
of  knowledge,   his  illustrations  and  constant  discussions  about 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  23 

virtue  and  the  good,  reinforced  by  conservative  imjiulscs  against 
scepticism,  stimulated  an  extraordinary  amount  of  interest  in 
ethical  reflection.  His  theory  about  the  nature  of  morality  was 
rather  a  paradoxical  one.  He  did  not  dispute  the  value  of 
pleasure  or  happiness  as  the  good,  but,  seeing  the  effects  of  its 
unbridled  pursuit,  sought  to  qualify  it  by  making  knowledge  or 
wisdom  the  condition  of  attaining  it.  His  whole  ethical  doctrine 
is  summed  up  in  two  propositions,  both  of  which  were  paradoxes 
even  to  the  Greeks.  They  were  (a)  that  no  man  is  voluntarily 
bad,  and  (b)  that  virtue  is  wisdom.  The  difficulties  occasioned 
by  both  of  these  notions  grew  out  of  the  equivocations  latent  in 
the  terms  "  voluntary  "  and  "  virtue,"  on  which  no  stress  can  be 
laid  here.  But  it  is  proper  to  remark  the  inj&uence  which  they 
exercise  upon  subsequent  thought.  The  controversies  started  by 
the  first  of  these  positions  terminated  in  the  distinction  between 
desire  and  will,  and  between  impulsive  and  deliberative  or  free  con- 
duct. The  controversies  about  the  second  resulted  in  the  distinc- 
tion between  natural  and  moral  good  or  excellence.  These 
distinctions,  however,  were  not  developed  by  Socrates.  The 
boasting  claims  of  the  Sophists  had  disgusted  him,  because  he 
saw,  in  spite  of  their  conceit,  that  they  did  not  know  Avhat  they 
meant  by  justice,  temperance,  courage,  about  which  they  were 
forever  disputing.  He  imagined,  therefore,  that  they,  with  man- 
kind at  large,  were  prevented  from  being  virtuous  by  not  know- 
ing what  the  good  was.  He  imagined  that  every  man  would  do 
the  right  if  only  he  knew  what  it  was.  Hence  he  attributed  all 
vice  to  ignorance.  He  seems  to  have  made  no  account  of  the 
fact  that  men  often  deliberately  choose  what  their  moral  judg- 
ment condemns.  Undoubtedly  he  would  have  said  of  such 
persons  that  they  did  not  really  know  their  own  good,  but  had 
mistaken  it,  though  acting  with  reference  to  what  they  supposed 
it  to  be.  It  was  this  idea  that  made  Socrates  attribute  all  wrong- 
doing to  a  defect  of  knowledge,  and  hence  he  set  about  trying  to 
define  the  nature  of  virtue.  He  demanded  of  the  Sophists  that 
they  define  what  they  meant  by  temperance,  courage,  justice, 
wisdom,  etc.,  and  their  failure  to  make  out  a  consistent  account 


24  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

of  them  was  interj)reted  as  proving  both  that  they  were  ignorant 
of  the  subject  about  which  they  professed  so  much  knowledge, 
and  that  this  ignorance  was  the  reason  for  their  defective  morality. 
He  found  them  disposed  to  seek  the  good,  if  only  they  knew  what 
it  was,  but  hopelessly  deceived  in  their  knowledge  of  that  good. 
Hence,  he  set  about  correcting  men's  conception  of  virtue  as  the 
first  condition  of  moralizing  them  and  announced  his  paradoxes 
with  the  view  of  maintaining  that  virtue  could  be  taught.  By 
this  he  actually  meant  that  men  could  be  taught  what  the  good 
was,  though  this  Avas  not  always  what  his  fellow-thinkers  under- 
stood by  it.  They  began  to  feel  the  difference  between  a  virtu- 
ous will  and  the  attainment  of  the  good,  though  they  did  not 
formulate  it.  Socrates  did  not  realize  the  extent  to  which  his 
own  strength  of  character  entered  into  his  own  choice  of  the  good. 
He  felt  his  defective  knowledge,  and  always  being  ready  to  do 
what  was  right  when  he  knew  it,  he  imagined  all  others  were 
like  himself.  He  did  not  imagine  that  there  were  persons  who 
did  not  wish  to  see  or  to  know  any  other  good  than  that  which 
they  Avere  pursuing.  Hence,  he  made  all  defects  of  character 
originate  in  ignorance  and  all  A^irtue  in  wisdom,  and  so  thought 
that  the  Avhole  problem  of  morality  lay  in  education.  Thus  he 
Avas  not  explaining  the  ground  of  virtue,  but  the  means  of  real- 
izing it.  He  merely  emphasized  the  importance  of  morality 
sufficiently  to  induce  among  his  admirers  and  disciples  a  scientific 
account  of  it.  * 

There  Avere  three  characteristics  in  Socrates  Avhich  influenced 
his  contemporaries  in  the  formation  of  their  ethical  doctrines. 
They  were  (a)  an  intense  conviction  that  Avisdom  or  knowledge 
AA'as  the  essential  factor  of  virtue,  (b)  excellent  self-control  in  the 
regulation  of  his  own  personal  life  and  conduct,  and  (c)  the  tacit 
supposition  that  pleasure  or  happiness  was  the  end  which  all  men 
sought.  The  first  of  these  represented  his  sj)ecial  doctrine,  and 
the  last  tAvo  Avere  personal  traits  of  character  and  opinion.  These 
three  aspects  of  the  man  gave  rise  to  as  many  schools  Avhich  sim- 
ply exaggerated  tlie  one  principle  they  saAv  in  their  master.  First, 
the  Megarians  thought  that  the  good  Avas  not  knoAvn,  and  that 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  25 

the  first  problem  for  each  man  was  to  go  in  quest  of  it.  For  this 
reason  they  thought  that  knowledge  or  wisdom  was  the  highest 
good,  but  went  beyond  mere  knowledge  of  self  to  knowledge  of  the 
universe.  They  thus  transcended  their  master's  contempt  for 
Metaphysics.  Second,  the  Cyrenaics,  perceiving  that  Socrates  had 
a  regard  to  pleasure  in  his  conduct,  maintained  that  virtue  con- 
sisted in  the  rational  pursuit  of  it.  They  admitted  the  impor- 
tance of  knowledge,  but  they  thought  that  men  had  a  better 
knoAvledge  of  what  the  good  was  than  Socrates  asserted.  Hence, 
they  maintained  that  virtue  consisted,  not  in  the  quest  and  pos- 
session of  wisdom,  but  in  the  right  or  rational  application  of  it  to 
conduct.  Pleasure,  and  that  of  the  present  moment,  was  the 
good,  and  wisdom  was  necessary  to  choose  correctly  when  and  how 
it  was  to  be  obtained.  Third,  the  Cynics  admired  in  Socrates  his 
self-control  and  independence  of  the  pleasure  of  the  moment,  or 
rather  of  those  impulses  which  lead  a  man  blindly  into  wrong- 
doing. They  agreed  with  him  that  speculative  research  into  the 
nature  of  the  good  and  of  virtue  was  necessary  to  right  conduct, 
but  "  they  maintained  that  the  Socratic  wisdom,  on  the  exercise 
of  Avhich  man's  well-being  depended,  was  exhibited,  not  in  the 
skillful  pursuit,  but  -in  the  rational  disregard  of  pleasure,  in  the 
clear  apprehension  of  the  intrinsic  worthlessness  of  this  and  most 
other  objects  of  men's  common  aims."  In  this  the  Socratic  self- 
control  becomes  contempt  for  pleasure. 

The  jMegarian  movement  develops  into  the  systems  of  Plato 
and  the  Neo-Platonists,  and  into  that  of  Aristotle  in  a  less  de- 
gree. The  Cyrenaic  position  develops  into  that  of  the  Epicu- 
reans, and  the  Sceptics  of  the  New  Academy.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Cynics  develops  into  that  of  the  Stoics,  in  which  pleasure  appears 
either  as  an  evil,  or  as  a  morally  indifferent  object  of  will.  Each 
of  these  tendencies  must  be  briefly  sketched. 

2.  The  Platonic  Development. — Plato  derived  from  Socra- 
tes both  his  intellectual  and  his  moral  stimulus.  But  he  did  not 
stop  with  his  master's  contempt  for  metaphysical  knowledge.  On 
the  contrary,  he  made  his  ethical  doctrine  very  largely  consist  in 
its  dependence  on  such  knowledge.    When  Socrates  was  called  on 


26  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

to  give  a  reason  for  certain  courses  of  conduct,  in  spite  of  his 
predetermination  to  wholly  discard  Metaphysics,  his  naive  religious 
belief  in  a  providence  induced  him  to  point  to  the  goodness  of 
nature's  order,  and  its  providential  arrangement.  In  this,  or  in 
his  teleological  view  of  the  world,  he  virtually  recognized  the  need 
of  adjustment  to  its  conditions  and  ends,  and  prepared  the  way 
for  the  departure  of  the  Megarians  and  the  more  developed  system 
of  Plato.  But  he  did  not  even  see  this  promised  land  which  his 
unconscious  instincts  pointed  out.  His  disciple,  however,  saw  it 
and  entered  into  its  possession. 

There  were  three  main  influences  which  converged  in  produ- 
cing Plato's  conception  of  morality  or  virtue.  The  first  was  his 
antagonism  to  the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus ;  the  second  was  his 
opposition  to  the  sophistic  doctrine  of  the  conventional  origin  of 
moral  law ;  and  the  third  was  the  notion  that  man's  chief  end 
was  the  good  which  was  fixed  in  the  eternal  nature  of  things, 
and  not  in  the  pursuit  of  transient  pleasures.  Much  the  same 
interest  lay  at  the  basis  of  the  first  two  of  these  influences,  but 
they  represent  slightly  difierent  motives  when  taken  in  difierent 
connections. 

In  opposition  to  Heraclitus,  who  saw  nothing  but  flux  or 
change  in  the  universe,  Plato  sought  something  real,  permanent, 
eternal.  He  was  not  satisfied  with  a  universe  of  mere  phenom- 
ena which  represented  nothing  but  birth  and  decay,  perpetual 
creation  and  destruction.  On  the  metaphysical  side,  such  a 
doctrine  conflicted  with  the  unity  of  consciousness  and  the  de- 
mand for  the  correlate  of  all  jDhenomena;  namely,  that  of 
which  events  were  modes.  On  tlie  ethical  side  it  made  a  principle 
of  human  conduct,  a  law  of  unifi)rm  action,  impossible.  Hence  to 
satisfy  both  the  metaphysical  and  the  ethical  demand,  Plato  set 
up  his  "ideas"  or  forms,  types  of  permanent  reality,  which 
represented  the  eternal  nature  of  things.  In  Ethics  this  posi- 
tion was  an  a  priori  assault  on  the  conventional  theory  of 
the  Sophists,  which  made  morality  the  sport  of  legislation  and 
the  pursuit  of  personal  interests  in  a  world  without  fixed  or 
rational  order.     It  will  be  seen,  then,  why  Plato  did  not  defend 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS^  Ti 

the  theological  theory.  The  Sophists,  had  they  admitted  the 
existence  of  the  gods,  would  not  have  objected  to  making  moral 
law  a  product  of  their  decrees.  Hence  Plato,  believing  in 
their  existence,  might  have  referred  morality  to  their  authority, 
but  he  sought  its  ground  elsewhere,  in  the  eternal  nature  of 
things,  to  which  even  the  divine  was  subject.  He  would  not 
recognize  that  moral  law  could  be  the  creation  of  any  will  or 
authority.  He  could  conceive  it  only  as  an  order  of  things 
which  must  or  ought  to  be  the  object  of  all  wills  Avhatsoever. 
Hence,  without  defending  or  attacking  the  theological  view,  he 
opposed  the  theory  of  convention  because  it  implied  either  that 
moral  law  could  be  created  by  an  exercise  of  power,  or  that  no 
law  whatever  could  be  imposed  upon  the  individual.  He  was  as 
much  afraid  of  anarchy,  on  this  account,  as  we  are  to-day,  and 
so  he  sought  a  fixed  law  in  the  constitution  of  nature  according 
to  which  man  must  order  his  conduct,  if  he  would  realize  the 
good.  Hence,  following  the  tendencies  of  the  Megarians,  spring- 
ing from  the  tacit  assumptions  of  Socrates'  teleological  doctrine  of 
providence,  he  sought  in  something  external  to  man  the  good 
at  which  it  was  his  duty  to  aim,  or  to  which  his  conduct  should 
conform.  He  looked  at  the  world  and  saw  that  everything  was 
called  good  or  bad,  according  as  it  did  or  did  not  realize  the  "  idea  " 
or  perfect  form  which  it  represented.  From  this  he  sought  to 
determine  the  highest  good  which  subordinated  all  particular 
things  to  it,  and  finding  it,  he  made  morality  to  consist  in  realiz- 
ing  it    as   the   chief  end    of  man.*     In  this  he  found  an  end 

*  Professor  Sidgwick  (History  of  Ethics,  p.  37)  explains  this  tendency 
in  Plato  in  the  following  interesting  manner:  "Since  all  rational  ac- 
tivity is  for  some  end,  the  difl'erent  arts  or  functions  into  which  human 
industry  is  divided  are  naturally  defined  by  a  statement  of  their  ends  or 
uses,  and  similarly,  in  giving  an  account  of  the  different  artists  and  function- 
aries, we  necessarily  state  tlieir  end,  '  what  they  are  good  for.'  It  is  only  so 
far  as  they  realize  this  end  that  they  are  what  we  call  them.  A  painter 
who  cannot  paint  is,  as  we  say,  '  no  painter,'  or,  to  take  a  favorite  Socratic 
illustration,  a  ruler  is  essentially  one  who  realizes  the  well-being  of  the 
ruled ;  if  he  fails  to  do  this,  he  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  ruler  at  all. 
And  in  a  society  well  ordered  on  Socralic  principles,  every  human  being 


28     .  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

wliicli  could  not  be  coufused  with  pleasure,  because  this  last  was 
a  transient  phenomenon  in  human  experience,  a  passing  state  of 
feeling.  Thus,  the  ultimate  good  was  something  different  from 
pleasure,  and  independent  of  any  individual  will.  Plato  went  so 
far  as  to  identify  it  with  God,  and  thus  founded  his  Ethics  upon 
an  eternal  principle.  But  in  so  doing  he  neither  abandoned  the 
psychological  standpoint  of  his  school  nor  exhausted  his  doc- 
trine by  this  conception  alone.  He  went  on  to  show  that  virtue 
consisted  in  the  rational  pursuit  of  this  end,  and  the  emphasis 
which  he  placed  upon  ■wisdom  or  knowledge  secures  his  alle- 
giance to  the  Socratic  movement,  in  spite  of  his  excursion  into 
Metaphysics.  In  other  words,  man  must  consciously  and  ration- 
would  be  put  to  some  use ;  the  essence  of  his  life  would  consist  in  doing 
what  he  was  good  for.  But  again,  it  is  easy  to  extend  this  view  throughout 
the  whole  region  of  organized  life  ;  an  eye  that  does  not  attain  its  end  by 
seeing  is  without  the  essence  of  an  eye.  In  short,  we  say  of  all  organs  and 
instruments,  that  they  are  what  we  think  them  in  proportion  as  they  fulfill 
this  function  and  attain  their  end  :  if,  then,  we  conceive  the  whole  universe 
organically,  as  a  complex  arrangement  of  means  to  ends,  we  shall  under- 
stand how  Plato  might  hold  that  all  things  really  tvere,  or  '  realized  their 
idea,'  in  proportion  as  they  accomplished  the  special  end  or  good  for  which 
they  were  adapted.  But  this  special  end,  again,  can  only  be  really  good  so 
far  as  it  is  related  to  the  ultimate  end  or  good  of  the  whole,  as  one  of  the 
means  or  particulars  by  or  in  which  this  is  partially  realized.  If,  then,  the 
essence  or  reality  of  each  part  of  the  organized  world  is  to  be  found  in  its 
particular  end  or  good,  the  ultimate  ground  of  all  reality  must  be  found  in 
the  ultimate  end  or  good  of  the  universe.  And  if  this  is  the  ground  of  all 
reality  it  must  equally  be  the  source  of  all  guidance  for  human  life ;  for  man, 
as  part  and  miniature  of  the  Cosmos,  can  have  no  good,  as  he  can  have  no 
being,  which  is  not  derived  from  the  good  and  being  of  the  universe.  Thus 
Plato,  without  definitely  abandoning  the  Socratic  limitation  of  philosophy 
to  the  study  of  liuman  good,  has  deepened  the  conception  of  human  good 
until  the  quest  of  it  takes  in  the  earlier  inquiry  into  the  essential  nature  of 
the  external  world  from  which  Socrates  turned  away.  Even  Socrates,  in 
spite  of  his  aversion  to  physics,  was  led  by  pious  reflection  to  expound  a 
teleological  view  of  the  physical  universe,  as  ordered  in  all  its  parts  by 
Divine  Wisdom  for  the  realization  of  some  divine  end  ;  what  Plato  did  was 
to  identify  this  Divine  End — conceived  as  the  very  Divine  Being  itself — 
with  the  good  tliat  Socrates  sought,  of  which  the  knowledge  would  solve  all 
the  problems  of  human  life." 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  29 

ally  pursue  the  end  which  nature  has  fixed  for  him  as  his  high- 
est good,  in  order  to  be  moral. 

For  the  realization  of  this  good,  Plato  must  assert  the  existence 
of  a  soul  and  its  immortality  in  opposition  to  the  materialism  of 
Atomic,  Heraclitic  and  Sophistic  doctrines.  The  soul,  however, 
inhabits  a  body  which  is  the  seat  of  all  sorts  of  conflicting  desires 
and  impulses,  each  seeking  its  own  satisfaction  without  regard  to 
others  or  to  reason.  It  is  the  business  of  the  moral  life  at  least 
to  bring  these  into  harmony,  and  hence  accepting  the  general 
judgment  of  the  Greek  consciousness  that  moderation  was  the 
typical  virtue  {(xpj.iov\a,  ffvi-iixsTpia,  jxr/Str  ayav,  (Xco(f>po- 
(TVV7f,  }.i£ff6r?]5,  etc.)  he  sought  by  his  psychology  to 
provide  the  principle  by  which  this  should  be  effected. 
He  assumed  a  twofold  function  of  mind,  the  cognitive  and 
the  regulative  function,  though  he  did  not  sharply  dis- 
tinguish between  the  two  processes.  The  former  was  con- 
cerned with  knowledge,  and  the  latter  with  the  control  of  the 
impulses,  but  the  essential  element  of  this  control  was  that  it 
was  rational,  the  effect  of  knowledge,  and  here  appears  the  psy- 
chological importance  of  knowledge  in  right  conduct.  The  fol- 
loAving  scheme  represents  Plato's  psychology : 

r    Intellectual   r^^'i'fe^J^ 5  =  Sensation  (Appearance). 
fCocrnitive)     )  ?^^'^  T  ^^^^^^  (Opinion). 
^     "  '     t£7r/(Jr?p//7;  =  Kno\vledo;e  (Intuition). 

Eegulative     \'f^:!'T'\^  ^''^'fp'  Xp^sn-e). 
(Active)       1      '-^  =  Impulse  (Passion). 
^  '       (.  rous^Eeason  (Conscience). 


Mental  Powers 


In  this  scheme  the  terms  in  brackets  represent  the  more  liberal 
translation  of  Plato's  conception,  and  the  others  their  modern 
equivalents,  as  far  as  that  is  possible.  Appetite  refers  to  the 
organic  cravings  which  still  go  by  that  name :  impulse,  the  higher 
appetencies  more  closely  related  to  reason,  but  not  of  it.  Both 
re2)resent  irrational  desires,  and  must  be  under  the  domination 
of  reason,  which  is  simply  Plato's  term  for  our  idea  of  conscience. 
Plato  illustrates  their  relation  by  the  celebrated  myth  of  the 
chariot,  whose  steeds  were  appetite  and  impulse,  and  whose 
driver   was  reason.     He    represented    the  steeds   as   wild   and 


30  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

unordered  beings  who  were  sure  to  dash  the  chariot  to  pieces  and 
to  produce  general  ruin,  unless  they  were  directed  by  a  wise  and 
intelligent  charioteer.  Such  a  functionary  was  reason.  It  was 
the  regulator  and  director  of  blind  impulses,  guiding  them  to 
an  intelligent  end. 

Though  Plato  thus  distinguished  between  rational  and  irra- 
tional conduct,  the  distinction  does  not  coincide  exactly  with  our 
own  similarly  expressed,  though  we  can  trace  the  lineage  of 
present  conceptions  to  a  Paltonic  origin.  Kational  and  irrational 
at  present  implies  the  contract  between  the  voluntary  and  the 
involuntary  excellences  or  virtues,  but  Plato  did  not  distinguish 
between  the  natural  and  the  acquired  good  qualities.  Hence  his 
rational  conduct  was  conscious  as  opposed  to  unconscious  action, 
but  not  necessarily  deliberative  as  opposed  to  non-deliberative 
action.  It  was  reserved  for  Aristotle  to  analyze  the  problem  at 
this  point  more  carefully.  With  Plato  reason  expressed  less  of 
freedom  and  spontaneity  than  of  merely  intelligent  activity.  But 
he  drew,  once  for  all,  the  distinction  between  conscious  and 
instinctive  conduct,  which  was  the  difference  between  a  knowledge 
of  the  end  we  are  seeking  and  purely  blind  unintelligent  action. 
He  thus  developed  more  clearly  than  Socrates  the  notion  that 
coiisciousness  or  intelligence  is  the  first  condition  of  responsible  and 
therefore  of  moral  conduct.  Plato  did  not  say  as  much  as  this, 
but  his  doctrine  ultimately  terminated  in  that  conception  of  the 
case,  when  rationality  came  to  imply  freedom  and  deliberation  as 
well  as  consciousness. 

On  the  basis  of  this  psychology  Plato  classified  and  detei'mined 
the  character  of  the  several  virtues.  He  adopted  the  four 
cardinal  virtues  of  Greek  tradition  as  the  fundamental  types  of 
morality,  and  placed  wisdom  at  the  head  of  the  four.  They 
were  Wisdom  (<^poK;;(5'/5  or  aocpia),  Courage  {dvdpeia),  Tem- 
perance or  M(jderation  {ffoixppoffvvif),  and  Justice  or  Upright- 
ness (diKaioffvvrf).  In  this  classification  a  farther  peculiar  and 
interesting  analysis  was  attempted  which  prepared  the  way  for 
an  important  distinction  by  Aristotle,  which  still  holds  in  the 
science  of  Ethics.     Plato  has  but  three  faculties,  and  he  must  find 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  31 

the  unity  of  these  virtues  within  his  scheme.  On  the  one  hand 
Temperance  is  the  virtue  of  appetite,  and  Courage  the  virtue  of 
impulse  ;  that  is,  they  represent  the  right  use  aud  direction  of 
these  desires.  According  to  his  conception,  Wisdom  is  their 
conditioning  virtue,  and  must  be  their  essential  quality  or 
accompaniment.  On  the  other  hand.  Justice  is  not  disposed  of 
in  the  scheme.  But  it  seems  that  at  other  times  Plato  makes 
Justice  or  Uj)rightness  the  unity  and  principle  of  the  others, 
showing  that  his  miud  was  not  wholly  clear  as  to  the  method  of 
unifying  them  by  a  single  principle.  But  he  vaguely  anticipated 
the  distinction  between  knowledge  as  the  good  or  object  of  the 
intellect,  aud  righteousness  as  the  good  or  object  of  the  will,  the 
distinction  between  knowledge  and  virtue  which  Socrates  never 
could  admit.  This  only  makes  clear  that  Plato's  conception  of 
virtue  never  went  beyond  the  good,  as  an  object  of  will  or  desire, 
except  as  he  obscurely  caught  a  sight  of  what  was  meant  by 
justice  or  righteousness ;  namely,  a  quality  of  will  as  opposed 
to  a  quality  of  intellect.  Had  he  distinguished  between  legality 
and  equity  he  might  have  clarified  his  views  very  considerably. 
But  he  did  determine  once  for  all  the  conditioning  effect  of 
knowledge  or  intelligence  upon  the  direction  of  human  impulses, 
and  thus  showed  how  necessary  it  was  to  the  attainment  of 
the  good,  and  to  the  doctrine  of  responsibility  as  later  de- 
veloped. 

The  contributions  of  Plato  to  the  ethical  problem  may  be 
summarized  in  the  following  manner  :  First,  he  made  morality 
to  consist  of  conformity  to  reason,  as  opposed  to  impulse,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  to  authority  on  the  other.  This  conception  re- 
mains as  a  permanent  contribution  to  the  science.  Second,  he 
founds  morality  upon  the  relations  between  action  or  law  and 
its  end,  and  not  upon  the  relation  between  law  and  its  cmise,  and 
hence  originates  that  tendency  which  arises  to  substitute  resjied 
^  for /ea?' as  the  true  motive  to  virtue.  Both  of  these  positions 
show  how  Plato  belongs  to  the  psychological  or  subjective 
school,  though  other  characteristics  take  him  out  of  it.  Third, 
he  identifies  the  ultimate  Good  with  God,  and  thus  moves  toward 


32  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

a  doctrine  of  absorption,  as  found  in  Neo-Platonism.  This  is 
the  metaphysical  and  religious  element  in  Plato's  ethical  theory. 
Fourth,  he  reinforces  the  Pythagorian  doctrine  of  immortality 
as  a  moment  or  characteristic  in  ethical  life  and  theory.  He 
thus  made  the  present  life  a  probation  for  another,  and  extended 
the  area  of  time  and  conditions  affecting  conduct.  Fifth,  he  gave 
a  practical  embodiment  of  his  conceptions  in  an  ideal  of  social 
life,  sacrificing  the  individual  to  the  organism.  In  this  his 
politics  and  ethics  were  united. 

3.  The  Aristotelian  System. — The  first  fact  of  special  in- 
terest in  Aristotle  is  that  he  wholly  separates  his  Ethics  from 
Metaphysics,  and  in  this  way  preserves  intact  the  fundamental 
principle  and  spirit  of  Socrates.  Both  his  Ethics  and  his  Poli- 
tics are  distinct  from  all  of  his  metaphysical  conceptions,  and 
hence  we  find  him  wholly  departing  from  the  religious  ideas  and 
associations  of  the  Platonic  system.  The  doctrines  of  im- 
mortality and  of  the  ultimate  end  or  good  of  the  universe  are 
not  touched  upon  as  elements  in  an  ethical  theory.  Hence  he 
stands  only  upon  an  anthropological  and  psychological  founda- 
tion. His  ethical  and  his  political  theories  represent  that  both 
public  and  private  action  have  the  same  object — namely,  human 
welfare  or  happiness  ;  but  they  employ  different  methods.  His 
first  step  in  treating  the  subject  is  to  maintain,  at  least  by  im- 
plication, that  all  conduct  obtains  its  merit  or  demerit  from  the 
end  sought.  But  he  finds  no  occasion  to  assert  this  as  a  disproof 
of  theories  of  autliority.  He  simply  treats  tlie  fact  as  a  truism. 
The  end,  however,  Avhich  he  affirms  to  be  the  highest  good  is 
well-being  (sv^ai/.iovla').  He  meant  by  this  all  that  we  mean 
by  happiness,  and  also  the  conditions  of  realizing  it,  or  connected 
with  it.  This  happiness  is  not  j)leasure  (jjdovrj),  as  con- 
ceived by  the  Sophists,  nor  feeling  as  general  pleasure,  but  a 
state  of  being  or  i)erfection  which  would  find  pleasure  or  happi- 
ness as  one  of  its  concomitants  or  consequences.  Aristotle  thus 
becomes  the  founder  of  what  may  be  called  Perfectionism,  or  the 
theory  which  makes  perfection  rather  than  mere  feeling  the 
highest  good.     The  chief  improvement  of  ethical  theory,  how_ 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  33 

ever,  which  he  introduces,  comes  from  his  thorough  psychological 
analysis  of  the  problem. 

We  have  seen  the  paradox  of  Socrates  couceruiug  the  iden- 
tity of  virtue  and  knowledge,  the  involuntary  character  of  vice^ 
and  the  teachability  of  virtue.  Though  the  way  to  solve  them 
should  have  been  clear  to  Plato,  he  seems  to  have  wholly  failed 
in  the  eflbrt.  He  still  mistook  and  exaggerated  the  nature  of 
wisdom  as  the  good,  and  fluctuated  between  two  opinious  on  the 
question  whether  virtue  could  be  taught  or  not.  On  the  one  hand, 
was  the  common  consciousness  with  which  he  sympathized,  and 
which  thought  that  men  could  be  educated  in  virtue.  With  this 
Plato's  acceptance  of  the  Socratic  doctrine  agreed  since  he  held 
that  men  could  be  influenced  by  ideas.  On  the  other  hand,  was  his 
doctrine  of  reminiscence,  that  knowledge  was  not  produced,  but 
only  called  into  clear  consciousness  by  education,  and  also  a  ■wide- 
spread conviction  that  a  man's  excellences  were  a  constitutional 
part  of  his  possessions;  and  hence  between  these  two  views  Plato 
came  to  no  final  decision.  It  was  at  this  point  that  Aristotle  began 
his  analysis.  His  first  step  was  to  distinguish  between  two  kinds 
of  "  virtue."  These  were  natural  and  moral  virtue.  He  could  do 
this  because  in  Greek  usage  virtue  (aperrj)  denoted  excellence, 
good  quality,  or  perfection,  and  this  might  be  something  which 
was  a  natural  endowment  of  men,  or  it  might  be  something  ac- 
quired Ijy  their  habits.  What  Aristotle  saw  was  the  distinction 
between  things  or  natural  qualities  which  we  admire  or  dislike, 
and  moral  qualities  which  we  praise  or  condemn.  Both  of  these 
were  confused  in  the  common  use  of  virtue  or  excellence.  With 
Socrates  it  meant  any  good,  and  knowledge  was  the  highest  form 
of  it.  But  Aristotle,  observing  that  morality  is  concerned,  mainly, 
if  not  exclusively,  with  the  distribution  of  praise  and  blame,  dis- 
tinguishes between  those  excellences  which  are  a  part  of  a  num's 
endowment,  and  those  which  are  a  product  of  his  will.  The  moral 
virtues  are  the  latter ;  and  from  Aristotle  onward  virtue,  except  in 
a  few  sporadic  phrases  outside  of  Ethics,  denotes  a  quality  of  will 
or  conduct — that  is,  it  denotes  moral  as  oi)poscd  to  natural  excel- 
lence.    But  while  making  moral  excellence  or  virtue  a  product 


34  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

of  will,  he  does  not  consider  it  such  when  the  person  merely 
happens  to  act  casually  in  conformity  with  the  good,  but  it  must 
be  a  liahit  of  his  actions.  Thus,  to  be  virtuous,  a  man's  conduct 
must  be  a  law  for  him,  the-  regular  expression  of  his  will,  and  in 
this  way  Aristotle  anticij^ates,  though  he  does  not  develop,  the 
view  that  virtue  or  moral  merit  consists  in  action  according  to  a 
formal  law,  rather  than  the  pursuit  of  momentary  goods.  The 
important  feature,  however,  of  the  doctrine  is  that  he  makes  it  a 
habit  rather  than  a  faculty  or  endowed  excellence,  and  in 
this  way  he  limits  morality  to  the  will,  excluding  it  from  all 
the  operations  of  the  intellect,  as  such,  and  from  all  actions 
or  qualities  considered  as  natural  and  as  o^Dposed  to  voluntary 
events.  But  this  step  necessitates  another.  Following  the  Pla- 
tonic conception  of  a  number  of  impulses  or  desires  struggling 
for  the  mastery  of  the  soul,  all  of  which  Aristotle  assumes  to  be 
natural  instincts  requiring  the  guidance  of  reason,  he  indicates, 
in  accordance  with  the  common  conception  of  moderation  as  the 
chief  virtue,  that  moral  excellence  consists  in  the  viean  between 
the  excessive  and  the  deficient  gratification  of  natural  desires. 
Here  again  we  find  morality  defined  by  reference  to  the  will  rather 
than  to  the  intellect,  and  its  whole  character  made  the  result  of 
control  over  irrational  inclinations.  Thus,  his  view  is  summar- 
ized by  Schwegler.  "Virtue,"  Aristotle  maintained,  "  is  the 
product  of  repeated  moral  action  ;  it  is  a  quality  won  through 
exercise,  an  acquired  moral  ability  of  the  soul.  The  nature  of 
this  ability  may  be  characterized  as  follows :  Every  act  accom- 
plishes something  as  its  work ;  but  a  work  is  imperfect  if  cither 
in  defect  or  excess.  The  act  itself,  therefore,  will  be  similarly 
imperfect  either  by  defect  or  excess ;  nor  will  an  act  be  perfect 
unless  it  attain  to  a  right  proportion  to  the  due  mean  between 
too  much  and  too  little.  Virtue  in  general,  then,  may  be  defined 
as  observation  of  the  due  mean  in  action.  But  what  is  enough 
or  the  mean  for  one  man  may  not  be  so  for  another.  The  virtue 
of  a  man  is  one  thing,  but  that  of  a  wife,  a  child,  a  slave,  is  quite 
another.  In  like  manner  there  must  be  consideration  of  time,  cir- 
cumstances and  relations.    Hence,  only  so  far  as  there  are  certain 


DEVELOPMEXT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  35 

constant  relations  in  life  will  it  be  possible  to  assign  also  certain 
leading  virtues.  Our  constant  human  relation,  for  example,  is 
that  of  pleasure  and  joain.  The  moral  mean  in  this  reference, 
then,  will  be  fortitude  or  courage,  neither  to  fear  pain  nor  to  seek 
it.  The  due  mean  in  regard  to  pleasure,  again,  as  between 
apathy  and  greed,  will  be  temperance.  In  social  life  the  mean 
between  the  doing  and  the  suffering  of  wrong,  between  selfishness 
and  weakness,  is  justice."  Throughout  the  whole  scale  of  the  vir- 
tues, Aristotleendeavors  to  carry  out  his  doctrine  of  the  mean  be- 
tween excess  and  deficiency,  which  is  •  only  his  phrase  for  what 
Plato  meant  by  the  regulation  of  desire  and  impulse  by  reason, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  exalted  into  a  philosophic  principle 
the  common  adage  about  moderation  (^ffa)(^po(TVVf/,  /xs()6t?/s 
j.irf6i:V  ayav). 

But  having  distinguished  between  natural  and  acquired  or 
moral  virtues,  and  limited  the  latter  to  phenomena  of  will,  he 
goes  on  to  distinguish  between  the  voluntary  and  involuntary 
actions  of  man.  This  distinction  is  very  intimately  connected 
with  the  former.  If  all  excellences  were  alike,  praise  and  blame 
would  have  to  be  applied  to  all  or  excluded  from  all.  But 
having  maintained  that  praise  and  blame  attached  only  to  moral 
actions,  respectively  virtue  and  vice,  he  must  farther  distinguish 
between  voluntary  and  involuntary  actions  as  a  means  of  refu- 
ting the  Socratic  claim  that  virtue  or  goodness  was  voluntary, 
and  vice  or  badness  was  involuntary.  Aristotle  made  both 
voluntary,  and  thus  attached  praise  to  virtue  and  blame  to  vice ; 
while  Socrates  could  only  apply  praise  to  virtue,  but  not  blame 
to  vice.  Aristotle  thus  excluded  natural  excellences  and  invol- 
untary actions  from  the  proper  province  of  Ethics.  But  he  went 
on  to  distinguish  two  kinds  of  voluntary  actions — namely,  the 
impulsive  and  the  deliberative.  Involuntary  acts  are  neither 
praiseworthy  nor  blameworthy.  Voluntary  acts  may  be  so,  but 
contain  different  degrees  of  imputability,  only  those  which  are 
deliberative  being  rational.  Deliberative  actions,  he  maintains, 
represent  a  certain  degree  of  intellectual  maturity,  and  he  rather 
asserts  that  they  are  not  found  in  animal  life.     In  this  way 


36  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

Aristotle  endeavors  to  establish  the  fact  that  man  is  the  cause  of 
his  own  actions,  and  that  when  he  deliberates,  is  responsible  for 
them.  We  have  in  this  position  an  elaborate  analysis  and  ex- 
planation of  the  freedom  of  the  mil — an  analysis  which  remains 
a  permanent  acquisition  to  philosophy,  and  represents  a  most 
important  step  in  advance  of  Plato.  The  latter  seems  never  to 
have  carried  freedom  beyond  the  conception  of  mere  "  poAver  of 
self-motion,"  while  the  freedom  that  conditions  imputability  was 
by  Aristotle  made  deliberative,  and  the  doctrine  of  moral  re- 
sponsibility placed  upon  a. basis  which  it  has  retained  ever  since 
with  those  who  are  not  determinists. 

In  contrast  with  the  moral  virtues,  Aristotle  takes  up  the 
intellectual,  which  are  the  natural  excellences.  These'  are 
scientific  capacity  (Kuowledge),  artistic  ability  (Art),  practical 
insight  (Prudence),  genius  (Wisdom),  and  moral  insight  (Reason 
or  Judgment).  Judgment  or  reason  he  defines  as  the  discern- 
ment of  what  is  equitable,  and  in  this  shows  that  he  still  used 
the  term  reason  to  denote  the  source  of  ultimate  truth  and  the 
regulator  of  irrational  impulses  after  the  manner  of  Plato. 
These  virtues,  however,  Aristotle  regards  as  conditioning  the 
moral  virtues  in  their  developed  form,  showing  that,  although  he 
originated  the  limitation  of  the  moral  virtues  to  the  will,  and 
ultimately  determined  the  limitation  of  the  word  "virtue"  to 
morality,  he  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  make  morality  a  matter  of 
mere  will,  as  the  idealists  often  do.  But  he  departed  far  enough 
from  his  masters  to  al)andon  the  notion  that  knowledge  was  the 
essence  of  virtue,  and  affirmed  that  it  was  the  condition  of  it ; 
Avhile  the  tendency  to  confine  morality  to  the  phenomena  of 
volition  ultimately  terminated  in  a  theory  that  it  consisted  in 
"good  will "  alone. 

In  the  treatment  of  Justice  {SiKaioffvvi])  Aristotle  also 
introduces  a  distinction.  Plato  makes  no  important  difference 
between  legality  and  equity.  Aristotle  draws  this  line  very 
carefully  and  clearly.  He  divides  justice  into  civil  justice,  or 
legality,  and  moral  justice  or  equity.  The  object  of  both  is  the 
same,  but  the  means  of  attainiug  it  are  different.     The  agency 


DEVELOPJIENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  37 

for  securing  civil  justice  is  government  or  law;  for  securing 
moral  justice,  it  is  good  will  or  fairness.  This  distinction  de- 
velops into  the  separation  of  Ethics  and  Politics,  which  was  tol- 
erably well  effected  by  Aristotle.  It  represents  the  distinction 
between  subjective  and  objective  goodness.  But  as  this  contrast 
was  not  more  than  hinted  at  by  the  Greeks  in  general,  or  by 
Aristotle  in  particular,  we  can  only  allude  to  it  as  in  the  germ 
in  the  thought  of  this  master.  Besides,  it  fixes  for  all  time  the 
distinction  between  law  and  equity,  and  so  determines  the  fact 
that  politics  must  ultimately  obtain  its  authority  from  ethics^ 
Avhich,  in  the  last  resort,  appeals  to  reason  and  not  to  convention. 
Here  we  find  the  principle  of  both  Socrates  and  Plato,  and  a 
refutation  of  the  Sophistic  doctrine,  in  that  the  real  question  does 
not  concern  the  origin  of  positive  law,  but  the  ground  of  its 
validity,  its  equity. 

When  Aristotle  comes  to  assign  the  life  that  represents  the 
ideal  good  to  be  striven  for,  he  makes  it  the  contemj^lative  life, 
and  in  this  he  remains  true  to  the  Socratic  conception  of  the 
place  occui^ied  by  wisdom  in  the  scale  of  virtue  or  good.  Plato 
had  distinguished  between  the  pure  and  the  mixed  pleasures, 
placing  the  latter  much  lower  in  the  scale  of  ends,  and  connected 
the  pure  and  unmixed  pleasures  with  the  activities  of  the  intel- 
lect. The  fact  also  that  he  made  the  philosopher  the  ruler  of  his 
Republic,  and  exalted  the  speculative  life  above  all  others,  ex- 
plains how  Aristotle  merely  follows  in  his  master's  footsteps  in 
making  the  contemjDlative  life  the  true  one  for  realizing  the 
highest  good.  This  was  idealizing  the  function  of  science  and 
philosophy.  But  after  all  it  only  reflects  the  natural  impulse  of 
all  the  higher  intellects  of  Greece,  so  one-sided  and  exaggerated 
in  Neo-Platonism,  and  was  a  prominent  characteristic  in  the  ar- 
istocratic and  national  tastes  of  the  race.  It  Avas  the  apotheosis 
of  knowledge,  and  the  shadows  of  that  influence  still  extend  over 
all  countries  where  Greek  conceptions  have  determined  their 
culture. 

Aristotle's  Ethics  may  be  summarized  in  the  following  proposi- 
tions: First,   he  separates  Metaphysics  and  Ethics.    Second,  he 


19389/ 


38  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

repudiates  pleasure,  and  accepts  well-being  or  perfection  as  the 
summum  honum.  Third,  he  distinguished  between  intellectual  or 
natural,  and  moral  excellence,  making  morality  a  habit  of  will 
instead  of  a  quality  of  intellect  or  nature.  Fourth,  he  distin- 
guished between  voluntary  or  conscious,  and  involuntary  or  un- 
conscious action,  and  between  impulsive  and  deliberative  action, 
so  as  to  develop  a  complete  theory  of  freedom  and  responsibility. 
Fifth,  he  resolved  all  virtue  into  a  mean  between  excess  and  de- 
ficiency, showing  how  reason  (conscience)  regulates  the  impulses 
toward  either  of  these  extremes.  Sixth,  he  distinguished  between 
justice  and  equity,  .separating  Ethics  and  Politics,  though  condi- 
tioning the  rights  of  the  latter  upon  the  former,  and  thus  disj^laced 
the  doctrine  of  convention.  Seventh,  his  practical  application 
of  the  ideal  was  placed  in  the  contemplative  life,  reflecting  the 
spirit  of  his  race,  and  probably  the  consciousness  of  the  political 
decline  of  his  age,  when  democracy  made  it  impossible  for  the 
noblest  men  to  engage  in  politics.  This  is  the  continuance  of 
that  retirement  from  the  world  Avhich  was  taught  by  Plato,  en- 
couraged  by  the  Stoics,  and  made  a  religion  by  Neo-Platonism. 
It  was  the  asceticism  of  Plato,  without  the  metaphysics,  that 
conditioned  it. 

3d.  Post-Aristotelian  Ethics. — There  are  three  schools  repre- 
senting this  period :  the  Stoic,  the  Epicurean  and  the  Neo-Pla- 
tonic,  but  all  characterized  by  a  reversion  to  the  method  of  look- 
ing to  an  external  order  for  determining  the  maxims  of  morality 
though  not  wholly  abandoning  psychological  analysis  of  the 
problem.  The  Epicureans,  however,  in  the  choice  of  the  end  of 
conduct  remained  faithful  to  the  psychological  standpoint  in  as 
much  as  they  made  it  pleasure.  Bat  they  had  a  distinct  regard 
to  the  external  order  in  determining  the  means  to  this  end.  The 
other  two  schools  emphasized,  one  of  thera  conformity  to  the  ideal 
order  of  nature,  and  the  other,  ecstasy  or  absorption  in  the  abso- 
lute. The  whole  period  was  characterized  by  the  decline  of  po- 
litical and  social  life.  Athens  had  been  conquered  first  by 
Sparta  and  then  by  Macedonia,  both  of  which  represented  an 
inferior  civilization.     The  old  religious  system  and  beliefs  had 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  39 

crumbled  into  ashes  at  the  touch  of  scepticism,  and  thus,  the 
passing  of  that  brilliant  period  of  culture  with  the  commercial, 
literary  and  political  system  which  it  had  built,  was  followed  by 
general  anarchy,  the  want  of  all  moral  restraint,  which  made  it 
impossible  for  the  sage  or  the  wise  man  to  live  contentedly  in  the 
midst  of  it.  The  nobler  intellectual  spirits,  therefore,  sought 
their  highest  good  in  withdrawal  from  all  participation  in  polit- 
ical life — the  Stoics  because  of  their  contempt  for  its  baseness,  the 
Epicureans  because,  on  the  one  hand,  the  intellectual  life  was 
incompatible  with  it,  and  on  the  other,  their  individualistic  and 
egotistic  Ethics  required  every  man  to  secure  pleasure  or  happiness 
for  himself;  and  the  Neo-Platonists,  because  they  thought  the 
w^orld  unworthy  of  them,  and  must  seek  their  good  in  religious 
ecstasy.  Two  schools  were  thus  decidedly  ascetic  in  their  ethical 
ideals,  and  the  other  more  free,  terminating  in  libertinism,  though 
its  first  representatives  taught  and  practiced  self-control  as  the 
condition  of  the  greatest  possible  amount  of  happiness. 

1.  The  Stoics. — The  starting  point  of  stoic  Ethics  was  in 
their  system  of  physics  or  metaphysics,  which  was  a  kind  of 
materialistic  pantheism,  owing  to  the  fact  that  they  could  not 
comprehend  an  idealistic  view  of  the  world.  Following  Aris- 
totle, they  had  imposed  so  much  confidence  in  the  deliverances 
of  sense  that  the  antithesis  between  the  subjective  and  objective, 
hinted  at  in  Democritus  and  the  sceptics  could  not  be  appreci- 
ated, and  hence  the  unity  which  they  found  in  the  world  was 
materialistically  conceived.  This  did  not  prevent  them  from 
conceiving  it  as  the  embodiment  of  reason.  Reason  was  itself  a 
fine  fiery  ether,  and  differed  from  other  elements  only  in  the 
supremacy  of  its  nature  and  of  its  power  in  regulating  the 
order  of  the  world.  All  nature  was  its  expression,  as  a  univer- 
sal rational  order.  Hence  reason  and  nature  were  practically 
one  in  their  value  and  significance  for  man.  In  their  Ethics, 
therefore,  following  the  formula  of  Plato,  the  highest  duty  of  man 
was  confo'-mity  to  nature  or  reason,  whether  this  nature  or  rea- 
son be  viewed  in  the  world  or  in  man.  Looking  upon  the  uni- 
verse as  a  divine  order,  they  could  assert  that  man's  supreme 


40  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

good  lay  in  adjustment  to  that  order,  imitation  of  its  harmony, 
submission  to  its  law,  and  looking  upon  man  as  a  group  of  con- 
flicting forces,  of  which  reason  was  the  higher  and  better,  they 
could  admonish  him  to  follow  reason  and  to  free  himself  from 
the  slavery  of  passion.  Both  of  these  features  are  decidedly 
Platonic,  one  being  metaphysical  and  the  other  psychological  in 
conception,  and  as  man  was  only  a  part  of  nature  the  same  for- 
mula applied  to  both  of  them.  The  life  according  to  reason  was 
the  life  according  to  nature. 

The  highest  good  according  to  the  Stoics  was  virtue.  This 
seems  a  strange  formula  to  modern  thought,  but  it  has  a  mean- 
ing much  different  from  what  might  be  supposed.  The  highest 
good  must  be  an  end,  while  virtue  to  our  minds  expresses  a 
quality  of  will  in  reference  to  an  end  other  than  itself.  It 
would  therefore  seem  strange  to  say  that  virtue  is  the  summiim 
bonum,  as  if  a  quality  of  will  could  exist  in  reference  to  itself 
alone  and  without  reference  to  any  other  end.  The  stoical  for- 
mula, therefore,  seems  paradoxical.  But  the  many  sided  meaning 
of  the  Greek  idea  of  virtue  (apsr?/),  makes  possible  a  conception 
not  suggested  by  the  modern  narrower  import.  In  Greek  it 
denoted  variously  "good,"  which  might  denote  either  an  end  or 
a  quality  of  will,  "  excellence  "  or  perfection,  a  quality  of  being, 
and  moral  merit  or  "  virtue,"  which  we  now  limit  to  the  will. 
The  second  of  these  meanings  removes  the  paradoxical  nature  of 
the  formula,  and  hence  if  we  regard  the  Stoics  as  holding  with 
Aristotle,  that  the  highest  good  is  perfection,  we  can  both  under- 
stand their  maxims  and  the  relation  of  their  doctrine  to  both 
the  Socratics  and  the  Epicureans.  It  was  moral  perfection,  but 
it  had  reference  to  a  state  or  quality  of  being,  rather  than  an 
abstract  quality  of  action,  and  virtue  is  a  quality  of  action  in 
reference  to  an  end,  and  so  cannot  be  made  an  absolute ;  per- 
fection, is  an  end  and  may  be  ultimate.  Hence,  from  this  we 
may  see  how  the  Stoics  could  regard  "virtue"  as  the  highest 
good.  This  opposition  to  Epicureanism  is  perfectly  intelligible 
in  this  conception  :  otherwise  it  is  not.  But  in  saying  that  vir- 
tue is  the  highest  good  they  did  not  mean  to  say  that  pleasure 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  41 

should  be  eschewed.  They  admitted  that  this  might  be  the 
wise  aud  good  man's  reward,  the  consequence  of  pursuing  virtue 
or  perfection,  but  it  was  not  to  be  the  object  of  moral  volition. 
Indeed,  the  good  man  showed  his  superiority  by  his  indifference 
to  it,  by  his  ability  to  do  without  it.  So  careful  was  the  Stoic  to 
exclude  pleasure  from  all  consideration,  even  as  an  accident  of 
virtue,  that  he  maintained  the  ideal  life  to  be  one  of  tranquility 
(^arapa^la),  freedom  from  excitement  either  of  pleasure  or 
pain,  a  life  of  calm  and  repose,  but  always  of  composure  and 
endurance,  if  pain  was  unavoidable,  because  it  was  not  in  its 
nature  an  evil.  Pain  was  neither  to  be  feared  nor  desj)ised,  any 
more  than  pleasure  was  to  be  desired.  Both  were  to  be  treated 
as  matters  of  indifference. 

In  regard  to  wisdom  or  knowledge  the  Stoic  does  not  remain 
on  the  Socratic  platform.  He  does  not  regard  knowledge  as  a 
good  in  itself:  he  considers  it  merely  as  a  means  to  an  end  and 
so  subordinates  it  entirely  to  practical  and  ethical  purposes. 
This  position  is  quite  in  the  direction  of  the  view  that  morality  is 
a  product  of  the  will  and  not  of  the  intellect.  That  is  to  sa}-,  the 
Stoics  follow  out  the  impulse  given  by  Aristotle's  distinction 
between  .intellectual  and  moral  excellence,  aud  make  morality  to 
consist  in  strength  and  activity  of  will.  That  mental  character- 
istic of  Socrates,  of  which  he  never  seemed  conscious,  namely, 
strength  of  will,  and  which  the  Cynics  exalted  into  a  principle  of 
Ethics,  the  Stoics  came  to  regard  as  the  fundamental  characteristic 
of  virtue  as  moral  excellence,  and  as  the  only  condition,  on  the 
one  hand,  of  adjustment  to  the  world  and  its  divine  order,  and 
on  the  other,  of  control  over  the  influence  of  passion.  In  this 
view  they  practically  emphasized  the  part  played  by  the  will  and 
what  we  should  call  moral  courage  in  the  conception  of  the 
function  of  conscience.  They  admitted  the  strength  of  the 
emotions,  instincts  or  passions,  but  urged  the  necessity  of  over- 
coming them  by  reason,  if  the  law  of  nature  was  to  be  obeyed  or 
respected.  Though  they  thus  laid  the  foundation,  they  did  not 
develop  a  doctrine  of  conscience. 

Other  aspects  of  the  Stoic  Ethics  were  natural  consequences  of 


42  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  main  theory.  For  instance,  the  emphasis  laid  upon  virtue  as 
the  good  and  its  alliance  Avith  the  \ai\,  led  to  the  doctrine  that 
the  motive  or  intention  was  sufficient  to  sanctify  conduct.  This 
notion  grew  out  of  the  distinction  between  perfect  and  imperfect 
duties,  the  former  being  absolute  and  the  latter  conditional.  The 
only  perfect  duty,  however,  Avas  the  will  or  wish  to  do  the  good. 
This  was  an  anticipation  of  the  modern  doctrine  that  virtue  con- 
sists in  "  good- will." 

From  this  view,  and  the  relation  of  the  wise  man  to  the  course 
of  nature,  came  the  Stoic  theory  of  determinism.  They  required 
of  man  absolute  resignation  to  nature  or  God :  he  must  think 
God's  will  better  than  his  own  will,  "  that  there  is  only  one  way 
to  happiness  and  independence,  that  of  willing  nothing  except 
what  is  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  what  will  realize  itself 
independently  of  our  will."  This  determinism,  however,  only 
affected  the  external  choice  of  man,  not  his  internal  disposition, 
which  remained  free.  If  the  order  of  the  world  did  not  permit 
perfect  freedom  in  the  satisfaction  of  desire,  it  also  did  not  pre- 
vent the  good  will  from  realizing  the  proper  attitude  of  feeling 
toward  that  order,  and  herein  consisted  man's  freedom.  This 
distinction  between  man's  internal  and  external  freedom  was  a 
farther  analysis  of  the  ethical  problem  than  Aristotle  had 
attempted,  and  it  especially  expresses  the  conflict  felt  by  a  high 
moral  consciousness  between  itself  and  the  unbending  course  of 
natural  law  and  the  hard  social  conditions  of  the  time,  though  it 
also  probably  expresses  a  conflict  between  desire  and  what  reason 
enjoins  as  a  duty.  At  any  rate,  in  their  doctrine  of  modified 
determinism,  we  have  the  strong  consciousness  of  the  limitations 
upon  man's  power,  and  his  duty  to  conform  his  will  to  them.  The 
same  doctrine  appears  more  fully  developed  in  later  Christianity. 

One  other  doctrine  has  some  interest,  and  this  is  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  men,  without  distinction  of  nationality,  which 
they  founded  on  his  common  fatherhood.  They  did  not,  how- 
ever, disapj)rove  of  slavery,  which  would  seem  the  natural  con- 
sequence of  their  position.  But  this  was  probably  due  to  several 
circumstances :     First,  a  system  of  slavery  which  permitted  of  an 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  43 

Epictetus  was  not  likely  to  b.e  felt  as  an  evil.  Second,  as  internal 
freedom  could  not  be  affected  by  the  servitude  of  tbe  body,  and 
was  all  that  was  in  reality  desirable,  there  was  nothing  to  excite 
the  opposition  of  the  Stoic.  Third,  it  was  not  equality  for  which 
the  Stoics  contended,  but  brotherly  and  harmonious  relations 
between  fellow-men,  and  they  saw  nothing  in  the  nature  of  slavery, 
or  the  subjection  of  one  man  to  another,  inconsistent  with  this, 
especially  as  his  own  highest  duty  was  to  live  in  subjection  to 
the  universal  law  of  nature.  Slavery,  therefore,  could  not  appear 
as  an  evil  to  the  Stoic. 

The  distinctive  characteristics  of  Stoic  morality  may  be 
summed  up  in  the  following  paragraphs :  First,  morality  is  con- 
formity to  nature  or  reason,  whether  we  regard  it  in  man  or  in 
the  world.  Second,  virtue  is  the  highest  good,  and  this  represents 
good  will  as  the  motive  or  attitude  of  reason,  and  perfection  as 
the  end.  Third,  wisdom  is  not  an  absolute  good  or  end  in  itself, 
but  a  means  to  virtue,  being  thus  subordinated  wholly  to  practical 
purposes.  Fourth,  the  intention  or  motive  is  the  essential 
element  of  morality.  Fijth,  man's  freedom  is  limited  to  internal 
choice,  his  dependence  upon  the  course  of  nature  restricting  the 
satisfaction  of  desire  to  the  government  of  reason.  Sixth,  all 
men  belong  to  the  same  brotherhood,  and  national  boundries 
should  give  way  to  a  federal  life  more  after  the  type  of  the  fomily. 

2.  The  Epicureans. — The  philosophy  of  Epicurus  and  his 
school  has  three  sources.  Its  physics  and  metaphysics  originate 
in  the  atomism  of  Democritus,  its  negation  of  religion  and 
theology  in  the  scepticism  of  the  Sophists,  and  its  Ethics  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Cyrenaics.  The  three  influences  were  welded 
together  to  form  a  compact  and  consistent  whole.  The  one 
primary  motive  which  seems  to  have  dominated  the  school  was 
the  desire  to  overcome  the  sense  of  supernaturalism  and  religious 
fear,  and  thus  to  establish  that  mental  calm  and  poise  which 
were  essential  alike  to  the  perception  of  truth,  the  performance 
of  virtue  and  the  attainment  of  happiness.  Hence  they  resorted 
to  purely  physical  explanations  of  things.  Their  materialism, 
this  being  embodied  in  the  atomic  theory,  was  designed  to  remove 


44  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

all  belief  iu  the  causal  interference  of  the  divine  in  things,  and 
with  it  the  fear  that  kept  men  in  subjection  to  arbitrary  laws  and 
prevented  their  free  pursuit  of  pleasure.  They  rather  inconsis- 
tently admitted  the  existence  of  the  gods,  but  placed  them  in  the 
intermundia,  or  interspaces  of  the  world,  where  they  could 
elercise  no  influence  upon  the  course  of  it.  For  this  reason 
there  was  no  ground  to  fear  their  power  to  harm  man  or  to 
interfere  with  the  freedom  of  his  life. 

Having  emancipated  the  human  will  presumably  from  super- 
stition and  fear  of  the  gods,  the  next  step  was  to  determine  the 
principles  of  morality,  which  were,  of  course,  placed  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  this  liberty.  As  Avith  the  Socratic  and  Stoic  schools  the 
first  thing  to  settle  was  the  highest  good,  and  this  they  boldly 
made  to  be  pleasure,  thus  adopting  the  ethic  of  ends  as  opposed 
to  authority.  But  they  did  not  accept  sensual  pleasure  as  ful- 
filling the  terms  of  the  problem  though  they  conceived  pleasure 
only  in  reference  to  sense.  The  distinction  drawn  by  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  on  the  one  hand  between  intellectual  and  sensuous 
pleasures,  and  on  the  other  between  pure  and  mixed  pleasures, 
with  the  implied  substitution  of  remote  for  momentary  satisfac- 
tion, was  not  without  its  influence  upon  this  school.  For  it  made 
intellectual  pleasure  the  type  of  good  to  be  sought  by  the  wise 
man,  and  made  knowledge  and  self-control  essential  means  to 
this  end.  Like  the  Stoics,  therefore,  thy  subordinated  knowledge 
to  practical  objects.  This  inclination  went  so  far  that  they 
valued  the  study  of  physical  phenomena  only  for  their  tendency 
to  banish  religion  and  superstition.  No  such  interest  as  the 
Stoics  displayed  iu  science  on  its  own  account  was  maintained  by 
the  Epicureans.  Scientific  knowledge  was  estimated  solely 
according  to  its  utility,  or  power  to  contribute  to  a  happy  life. 
In  this  way  the  whole  philosophy  of  tlie  Epicureans  was  con- 
centrated in  their  morality. 

The  first  object,  therefore,  which  the  school  had  to  determine 
was  the  highest  good,  the  ultimate  end  of  desire,  to  which  every- 
thing else  was  subordinate  as  a  means.  This  they  uniformly 
made  pleasure,  though  they  were  not  always  consistent  in  their 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  45 

assertions  of  what  was  to  be  regarded  as  pleasure.  In-  one  thing, 
however,  they  Avere  unfailing  and  consistent,  and  this  was  their 
invariable  denial  of  the  Stoic  formula  which  made  virtue  or  ex- 
cellence the  ultimate  end.  Hence  they  did  not  look  upon  virtue 
as  something  to  be  sought  on  its  own  account,  but  only  on 
account  of  pleasure  or  happiness.  They  never  conceived  the 
two  as  separable.  They  agreed  that  virtue  and  happiness  were 
invariably  connected,  but  asserted  that  virtue  was  only  a  means 
to  happiness,  and  not  an  end  in  itself.  The  Stoic  had  said  that 
virtue  or  excellence  was  the  end  and  happiness  its  consequence 
or  concomitant,  though  not  a  means  to  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Epicurean  asserted  that  virtue  was  only  the  means  and  hap- 
piness the  end  of  conduct,  and  thus  marked  an  irreconcilable 
opposition  between  the  two  points  of  view.  The  effect  of  this 
was  to  subordinate  everything  else  in  life  to  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure.  \^q.  have,  then,  in  the  school,  the  predecessors  of 
modern  Utilitarianism,  at  least  in  so  far  as  happiness  is  taken  as 
the  criterion  of  what  is  right.  The  important  difference  between 
the  ancient  and  modern  form  of  the  theory,  however,  is  that  the 
Epicureans  were  wholly  egoistic,  and  modern  Utilitarians  are 
mainly  altruistic  in  their  conception  of  the  matter.  The  differ- 
ence is  also  embodied  in  the  opposition  between  Individualism 
and  Socialism,  the  later  being  taken  in  the  sense  of  voluntary 
co-operation  to  attain  a  common  end. 

The  main  features  of  the  Epicurean  ethics  are  occupied  like 
that  of  the  Stoics,  with  a  description  of  the  wise  man,  a  method 
that  was  unconscious  testimony  to  the  imperfectly  developed 
condition  of  the  general  moral  consciousness.  This  aside,  how- 
ever, their  conception  of  the  wise  man,  drawn  from  the  domi- 
nant spirit  of  the  Socratic  movement,  was  that  of  a  person  who 
successfully  and  prudently  steered  a  middle  course  between 
passion  and  asceticism.  His  object  was  his  own  pleasure  or 
happiness,  and  every  arrangement  of  life,  marriage,  friends, 
political  duties,  personal  habits,  occupation,  etc.,  were  sacrificed, 
or  at  least  made  to  bend,  to  this  one  aim.  Though  various 
members  of  the  school  did  not  always  agree  as  to  the  form  which 


46  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

this  pleasure  should  take,  some  holding  that  it  was  sensuous  and 
some  intellectual,  they  were  agreed  that  the  end  was  pleasure 
rather  than  perfection,  excellence  or  virtue.  The  agreement 
was  still  further  made  clear  in  the  fact  that  the  devotees  of 
intellectual  pleasure  gave  this  an  ultimate  reference  to  the 
sensuous.  Their  ideal  of  happiness  comprehended  the  past  and 
the  future.  Their  intellectual  pleasures,  so  far  from  being 
opposed  to  the  sensuous,  were  merely  the  contemplation  of  past 
sensuous  pleasures,  the  anticipation  of  future,  and  the  regulation 
of  life  so  as  to  sacrifice  merely  momentary  to  more  remote  and 
permanent  pleasures.  It  Avas  this  that  marked  the  advance  of 
the  school  upon  the  Cyrenaics,  and  more  especially  determines 
the  rational  and  reflective  character  of  its  system.  "The 
Cyrenaic  was  a  buoyant  and  self-reliant  nature,  who  lived  in  the 
light  of  a  grander  day  in  Greece,  and  he  plucked  pleasures  care- 
lessly and  lightly  from  the  trees  in  the  garden  of  life  as  he 
passed  through  on  his  journey,  without  anxiety  for  the  future 
or  regret  for  the  past.  The  sage  of  Epicureanism  is  a  rational 
and  reflective  seeker  for  happiness,  who  balances  the  claims  of 
each  pleasure  against  the  evils  that  may  possibly  ensue,  and 
treads  the  path  of  enjoyment  cautiously,  as  befits  '  a  sober  reason 
which  inquires  diligently  into  the  grounds  of  acting  or  refrain- 
ing from  action,  and  which  banishes  those  prejudices  from  which 
spring  the  chief  perturbation  of  the  soul.' "  This  peculiarity 
shows  that  the  school  had  advanced  beyond  the  most  simple 
form  of  Hedonism  and  had  discovered  the  necessity  of  some 
sacrifice,  if  only  of  the  pleasures  of  the  moment,  in  order  to 
attain  the  ideal  or  greatest  amount  of  happiness,  though  it  re- 
quired the  development  of  later  ages  to  extend  the  idea  of  sacri- 
fice from  that  of  the  present  for  the  future  to  that  of  personal  for 
social  good.  The  Epicureans,  therefore,  stand  between  pure  and 
unreflective  Egoism,  and  uuiversalistic,  or  altruistic  Hedonism. 
The  concession  made  to  self-sacrifice,  however,  was  an  unconscious 
one,  and  purely  selfi-sh  in  its  nature,  though  it  involved  a  train- 
ing of  consciousness  in  habits  of  self-control  which  would  be  felt 
on  life  in  a  way  probalily  not  intended. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  47 

When  tlie  school  came  to  define  what  it  meant  by  happiness,  it 
seems  less  removed  from  the  views  of  preceding  schools  than  is  at 
first  apparent.  Pleasure  was  usually  conceived  as  a  positive  and 
agreeable  sensation  or  excitement  of  mind,  "a  motion"  of  the 
soul.  But  the  Epicureans  along  with  the  Stoics  deprecated  the 
violence  of  those  states  which  were  so  denominated,  and  regarded 
them  rather  as  accompaniments  of  intemperate  gratifications,  and 
hence  defined  the  happiness  of  the  wise  man  as  tranquillity  or  re- 
pose (ocrapa^La),  iudifierence  to  passionate  enjoyment,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  to  his  destiny  in  the  universe  on  the  other.  There 
is  a  touch  of  Stoicism  in  this  attitude.  But  its  ascetic  character 
is  eliminated  by  the  fact  the  Epicurean  thought  the  highest  pleas- 
ures were  obtained  by  securing  the  absence  of  pain,  and  thus  he 
could  still  emphasize  happiness  as  the  most  desirable  condition  for 
the  pursuit  of  life.  But  even  this  repose  did  not  suppress  the 
interest  in  positive  pleasures  which  were  so  much  the  object  of 
praise  and  expectation  that  the  development  of  the  school  lost 
sight  of  the  limitations  prescribed  by  the  founder  to  legitimate 
excitement  and  became  a  by-Avord  for  voluptuousness.  Its 
definition  of  happiness  as  repose  did  protect  its  tendencies  against 
the  reputation  which  history  and  tradition  have  ascribed  to  it ; 
while  the  motives  to  which  it  appealed,  the  particular  ideals 
which  it  exalted,  and  the  pleasures  which  it  pursued,  gave 
a  coloring  to  the  system  which  no  paradoxes  of  definition 
could  remove.  Hence  the  school  will  always  be  known  as 
the  antithesis  of  Stoicism  and  the  advocate  of  hedonistic 
Ethics. 

The  summarized  doctrine  of  the  school  is  as  follows:  First, 
its  interest  in  physical  science  and  philosophic  knowledge  only  as 
a  means  of  eliminating  superstition  and  of  increasing  the  amount 
of  happiness  attainable  in  life.  Second,  its  uncompromising 
antagonism  to  religious  beliefs.  Third,  the  doctrine  that  the 
highest  good  is  pleasure  to  which  virtue  and  all  else  are  subor- 
dinated as  means.  Fourth,  the  distinction  between  intellectual 
and  sensuous  pleasures,  not  as  different  in  kind,  for  ultimately  all 
pleasures  Avere  the  same,  but  as  different  in  the  mode  and  time  of 


48  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

their  realization,  tlie  former  having  for  their  object  the  higher 
resthetic  enjoyments  of  life. 

The  general  development  of  the  school  was  in  the  direction  of 
scepticism  and  passed  out  with  that  intellectual  movement. 
The  decline  of  Greek  civilization  involved  Epicureanism  as  one  of 
its  first  victims,  and  there  remained  to  continue  the  struggle  for 
moral  consciousness,  only  the  Neo-Platonists  whose  thought  and 
influence  extended  into  the  Christian  period  until  Justinian 
closed  the  school  of  Athens  in  529  a.  d.  From  that  time  they 
were  superseded  by  Christianity. 

3.  The  Neo-Platoxists. — Xeo-Platonism  was  a  mixture  of 
philosophy  and  religion  ;  the  former  being  defective  in  scientific 
spirit  and  method  and  the  latter  in  any  definite  notions  of  per- 
sonality. Its  peculiar  character  is  best  described  by  calling  it  a 
system  of  theosophy,  combining  oriental  theurgy  and  Hellenic 
naturalism ;  that  is  to  say,  oriental  mysticism,  magic  and  myths 
were  mingled,  sometimes  in  a  literal  way,  and  sometimes  allegor- 
ically,  with  the  philosophic  spirit  of  Greek  thought,  and  a  kind 
of  spiritualistic  pantheism  was  the  outcome.  We  find  this  in 
Ammonius  Saccas,  Proclus,  Plotinus,  Jamblichus,  Porphyry, 
Philo  Judffius  and  others.  The  whole  movement  represented  a 
completely  ascetic  retirement  from  the  general  spirit  of  Greek 
social  and  political  activity  though  clinging  to  the  intellectual 
ideals  of  its  best  days.  The  speculative  or  contemplative  life,  so 
much  exalted  by  Plato  and  Aristotle,  was  develoj)ed  out  of 
all  proportion  to  its  proper  place  until  it  passed  into  the  monks 
idolatry  of  seclusion  from  the  world.  In  its  first  and  metaphys- 
ical impulse  it  was  a  search  for  the  Absolute,  and  absolute  knowl- 
edge. In  this  it  Avas  the  foil  of  the  scej^ticism  which  rivalled  it 
for  the  conquest  of  the  age,  and  represented  the  last,  and  perhaps 
despairing,  efibrt  to  secure  a  foot-hold  for  truth.  This  Absolute 
was  thought,  the  pure  intuition  of  reason,  which  was  the  ultimate 
and  common  essence  of  all  intelligence,  no  individual  being  more 
than  an  emanation  from  it — "  a  light  sparkle  floating  in  the 
ether  of  Deity  " — and  thus  represented  the  unity  of  all  things. 
It  was,  of  course,  above  matter  and  endowed  Avith  divine  attri- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  49 

butes,  though  no  conceptions  of  man  could  adequately  define  it. 
They  could  only  figuratively  describe  it,  so  that  it  remained 
perfect  and  divine,  but  incomprehensible,  unspeakable  and  tran- 
scendent. 

It  was  this  inefiable  distance  of  the  divine  essence  from  man  and 
the  hopeless  decay  of  Greek  civilization  that  gave  of  them,  the 
religious  and  the  other,  the  ascetic  tone  of  Neo-Platoiiic  Ethics. 
Disappointment  with  the  world  made  the  I^eo-Platonist  a  recluse, 
and  the  consciousness  of  the  immeasurable  distance  of  the  divine,  or 
the  ideal  vastly  beyond  the  reach  of  sense  and  the  imagination, 
made  him  a  devotee.  His  philosophy  was  a  bold  idealism,  the  last 
refuge  of  the  revolt  against  skepticism,  and  thus  cutting  himself 
oflf  from  the  world,  and  aspiring  to  become  what  his  reason  told 
him  was  the  highest  object  of  hope  and  contemplation,  his  life 
became  one  of  ecstasy,  a  ceaseless  contemplation  of  the  absolute. 
Thus  his  Philosophy  and  Ethics  were  one,  a  belief  and  a  religious 
absorption  in  the  absolute.  Its  whole  mood  was,  therefore,  a 
religion,  with  the  ineffable  purity  of  God  in  front  and  man's 
imperfection  in  the  background.  There  was  no  theory  of  moral- 
ity as  we  find  it  in  the  saner  traditions  of  Greek  life,  but  only 
moral  and  religious  ecstasy,  which  we  find  reproduced  or  repre- 
sented in  the  monasticism  of  later  times  and  in  the  oriental  devo- 
tees of  that  and  earlier  periods.  It  was  a  mood  that  aimed  at 
the  purification  of  life  from  the  carnality  of  the  flesh.  The 
material  world  and  embodiment  of  the  soul  were  despised  and  all 
the  aspirations  were  directed  to  purifying  the  soul  from  its  con- 
tact with  the  world.  The  system  thus  lent  itself  very  readily  to 
the  presuppositions  of  Judaistic  thought,  connected  with  its  sacri- 
ficial and  ceremonial  worship,  and  in  this  way  influenced  and 
was  influenced  by  the  movement  embodied  in  Christianity. 
The  ethical  consciousness  turned  away  from  the  world  to  seek  its 
object  in  the  supersensual,  contrary  to  the  main  trend  of  Greek 
life,  and  once'  more  substituted  the  religious  for  the  scientific 
mode  of  thought.  This  explains  its  ascetic  character  and  shows 
why  its  ethical  tendencies  were  not  only  subjective,  but  also  of 
the   contemjilative   rather   than   the   active    sort.      It   was   emo- 


50  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

tional  rather  than  yolitional,  and  took  its  coloring  from 
metaphysical  interests  rather  than  from  social  conditions  and 
aims. 

The  main  points  which  summarize  Neo-Platonic  teaching  are 
as  follows :  First,  a  system  of  metaphysical  absolutism  arising 
as  a  revolt  against  scepticism.  Second,  a  spirit  of  religious 
ecstasy  which  aimed  at  emancipation  from  the  bonds  of  the  flesh, 
or  material  existence.  Third,  an  ascetic  withdrawal  from  all 
social  and  political  life  as  it  then  existed.  Fourth,  a  conception 
of  the  complete  contrast  between  the  imperfections  of  man  on  the 
material  side  and  the  perfection  of  the  divine,  which  could  be 
overcome  only  by  a  ceaseless  occupation  with  the  divine.  Thus 
the  highest  ethical  aim  becomes  the  apprehension  of  the  divine. 
Reflection  instead  of  action  is  consequently  the  form  which  its 
morality  takes. 

IT.  3IEDLEVAL  ETHICS.— This  movement  of  ethical  re- 
flection may  be  said  to  begin  with  Christianity,  though  it  more 
accurately  describes  the  thought  of  the  9th  and  15th  centuries 
inclusively.  But  as  the  main  impulse  comes  trom  Christianity, 
the  movement  must  be  traced  to  that  origin,  with  such  elements 
as  were  imported  into  it  from  contact  with  Greek  philosophy. 
The  main  characteristics  of  the  whole  period  are  the  religious 
source  and  coloring  of  the  moral  consciousness,  with  the  authority 
for  its  mandates  in  the  divine  will  and  revelation.  Its  object 
was  man's  redemption  and  the  glory  of  6rod.  The  whole  move- 
ment was  conceived  from  the  standpoint  of  man's  relation  to  God 
and  the  hereafter,  all  immediately  human  affairs  being  subordin- 
ated to  this.  It  rapidly  developed  a  philosophy  or  theology 
and  modified  the  purely  religious  features  by  speculative  consid- 
erations, which  also  became  complicated  with  the  political  and 
ecclesiastical  interests  of  the  age.  Hence,  we  shall  have  to  recog- 
nize three  different  periods  of  its  development,  characterizing 
the  predominance  of  distinct  elements  in  the  system.  These  we 
shall  call  Primitive  Chri.^timiity,  Philowphic  Christianity,  and 
Ecclesiastical  Christianity.  Each  one  of  these  forms  must  be 
considered  separately. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  51 

1st.  Primitive  Christianity. — This  took  its  rise  in  the  general 
social,  moral  and  religious  chaos  reigning  throughout  Rome, 
Greece  and  Palestine.  But,  unlike  Neo-Platonism,  it  did  not 
counsel  monastic  withdrawal  from  the  world  ;  nor  did  it  return 
to  the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  system  of  direct  participation  in 
political  life.  It  was  at  the  outset  neither  a  system  of  meta- 
physics about  man's  hopeless  entanglement  in  the  bonds  of  sense, 
nor  a  theory  for  the  political  regeneration  of  the  age.  It  was 
rather  a  return  to  the  better  elements  of  Judaism  and  changed 
the  method  of  regeneration  from  the  reflective  to  the  practical,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  the  social  to  the  individual,  on  the  other. 
Greek  thought  expected  moral  and  political  redemption,  the  one 
from  philosophy  and  the  other  from  government.  Christianity 
expected  to  realize  both  from  the  individual  practice  of  religion 
and  humanity,  religion  consisting  in  reverence  for  God's  law  and 
humanity  in  the  treatment  of  fellow-men  as  brothers. 

The  Founder  of  Christianity  did  not  teach  either  a  philosophy 
or  a  theology.  Some  assumptions,  wholly  Judaistic,  were  made 
about  the  existence  and  fatherhood  of  God,  but  no  dogmas  were 
propounded,  and  nothing  like  proof  of  either  of  them.  He  did 
not  seem  to  have  ever  been  aware  that  scepticism  regarding 
them  was  possible.  Hence  he  did  not  premise  them  as  philoso- 
phic conditions  of  his  doctrine,  but  proceeded  to  offer  the  world 
regeneration  by  changing  the  heart  and  will  of  the  individual, 
He  simply  ignored  every  form  of  philosophy,  whether  Juda- 
istic or  Hellenic,  and  more  particularly  the  political  hopes  and 
ideals  of  his  own  race.  He  taught  that  each  man  was  to  be  just 
to  every  other  man,  that  all  had  a  common  father,  and  that  they 
should  live  in  peace  ^ith  each  other.  The  kingdom  of  God, 
which  had  been  conceived  as  a  political  and  ecclesiastical  hier- 
archy, he  taught  was  a  condition  of  the  individual  heart  and  will, 
a  feeling  of  human  brotherhood,  and  so  implied  that  whatever 
social  advancement  was  attainable  must  be  established  by  the 
moralization  of  the  individual.  The  individual  he  sought  to 
regenerate  by  awakening  in  him  the  springs  of  love  to  God  and 
love  to  man,  and  this  was  to  be  effected  by  giving  his  own  life 


52  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  service  to  man  and  his  welfare.  Greek  morality  in  both 
the  theological  and  political  stages  appealed  to  fear  as  the  means 
of  affecting  conduct,  the  founder  of  Christianity  appealed  to  love, 
and  expected  thereby  to  moralize  the  will  as  well  as  conduct.  It 
is  this,  the  correlate  of  the  idea  of  human  brotherhood,  that  marks 
the  contrast  between  Christian  and  Hellenic  morality  and  so 
indicates  the  new  princijjle  which  was  to  characterize  the  later 
moral  consciousness.  It  was  the  first  emphatic  recognition, 
though  not  theoretically  asserted,  that  morality  is  internal  as  well 
as  external,  that  the  good  will  is  the  only  permanent  guarantee 
of  right  moral  relations  in  the  world.  This  teaching  Avas  especi- 
ally embodied  in  the  "Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  and  abounds  in 
numerous  maxims  throughout  the  Gospels.  It  is  summarized  in 
a  statement  which  rivals  Kant's  celebrated  formula  and  contains 
essentially  the  same  meaning :  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  unto  you,  even  so  do  ye  unto  them."  The  example, 
purity,  and  enthusiasm  of  the  master  soon  attracted  disciples,  and 
the  doctrine  took  an  organized  form.  The  master  was  looked  upon 
as  the  Messiah  who  was  to  dehver  his  people  from  bondage  and 
restore  the  kingdom  of  Israel.  The  novelty  of  his  doctrine  con- 
sisted in  the  clearness  with  which  he  developed  the  teaching  of 
the  prophets  while  utilizing  the  national  aspirations  to  give  it 
force  and  power.  His  followers  thus  became  imbued  with  his 
mission,  and  between  moral  insight  into  his  doctrine  and  faith  in 
his  personality,  they  saw  in  him  the  long  looked  for  Messiah. 
During  his  life,  however,  his  disciples  gave  his  person  and  teach- 
ing mainly  a  moral  and  a  political  meaning  with  a  religious 
background.  But  the  crisis  of  his  crucifixion  and  death,  with  the 
disappointments  which  it  brought,  transformed  the  whole  system 
into  a  religion  pure  and  simple,  with  its  morality  subordinated  to 
the  end  of  spiritual  rather  than  social  regeneration.  The  burden 
of  his  original  teaching  rested  upon  two  conceptions,  the  father- 
hood of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  represented  the 
"  kingdom  of  heaven"  after  the  type  of  the  family.  But  his  death, 
without  wholly  changing  the  formula  of  his  teaching,  very  greatly 
modified  its  meaning.     First,  Judaistic  and  then  Hellenic  con- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  53 

ceptions,  floating  in  tlie  common  consciousness  of  the  age,  attached 
themselves  to  the  fundamental  propositions  of  the  Christian  church 
and  gave  its  doctrine  a  new  and  deeper  religious  import.  The 
Judaistic  conception  of  the  IMessiah,  as  a  savior  of  the  nation,  its 
doctrine  of  sacrifices,  and  of  sin  with  its  alienation  from  God  com- 
bined to  change  the  conception  of  man's  relation  to  his  creator. 
They  added  the  idea  of  sovereignty  to  that  of  the  fatherhood  of 
God,  and  produced  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  atonement  for  sin. 
These  are  especially  prominent  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  and  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  The  conception  of  the  brotherhood  of  man 
remained  unchanged.  The  disappointment  at  the  failure  to  im- 
mediately realize  the  "  kingdom  of  heaven  "  transformed  that  con- 
ception into  an  ideal  paradisaic  existence  after  death,  and  modi- 
fied the  motive  of  righteousness  by  uniting  individual  interest  with 
the  injunctions  of  religion.  Summarized,  therefore,  Christianity 
was  from  the  outset  a  doctrine  of  salvation.  Like  Neo-Platonism 
it  was  for  the  salvation  of  the  individual,  but  unlike  the  same 
system  it  involved  distinctly  Judaistic  elements  and  expected  to 
regenerate  social  life  through  this  agency,  reversing  the  traditions 
of  Greek  thought.  This  salvation  took  on  an  extended  meaning 
when  it  was  made  to  comprehend  reconciliation  with  God  as  well 
as  man,  and  spiritual  perfection  in  an  existence  beyond  the  grave. 
Man's  moral  consciousness  was  thus  directed  to  the  propitiation  of 
his  ]Maker,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  duties  which  would  se- 
cure him  a  blissful  immortality  on  the  other  ;  both  of  these  con- 
ditions comprehended  right  relations  with  his  fellows.  In  this 
way  Christianity  retained  the  strength  of  its  original  impulse. 

This  primitive  movement  may  be  summarized  in  the  following 
conceptions.  It  is  divided  into  two  stages.  First,  a  spiritual  as 
opposed  to  the  political  conception  of  the  Messiah.  Second,  the 
moral  regeneration  of  the  individual  as  the  first  step  in  social 
salvation,  or  the  realization  of  "the  kingdom  of  heaven."  Thinl, 
the  Judaistic  doctrine  of  the  fatherhood  of  God.  Fourth,  the 
extension  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  first  beyond  the  limits  of 
sects  and  classes,  and  then  to  comprehend  all  nations.  Fifth,  the 
inculcation  of  love  in  opposition  to  fear  as  the  means  to  right 


54  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

conduct  or  tlie  establishment  of  the  right  relations  between  differ- 
ent personalities,  whether  divine  or  human.  This  love  took  the 
form  of  "  good  will"  to  man  (benevolence),  and  gratitude  and 
reverence  toward  God  (worship).  The  second  stage  involves 
some  modification  of  the  original  concejDtion.  First,  the 
sovereignty  as  well  as  the  fatherhood  of  God.  Second,  a  sense 
of  sin  or  alienation  from  God.  Third,  salvation  or  recon- 
ciliation with  God  by  means  of  vicarious  atonement.  Fourth, 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  realization  of  "  the 
kingdom  of  heaven"    after  death. 

The  moral  consciousness  was  profoundly  transfigured  by  all  of 
these  ideas.  Religious  sentiment  and  philanthropic  impulse  com- 
bined to  give  a  new  motive  to  conduct  and  morality  became  an 
expression  of  personal  character  as  Avell  as  conformity  to  law.  It 
was  intensely  practical  and  in  this  respect  was  opposed  to  the 
speculative  life  of  Hellenic  thought.  The  second  general  period 
however  modified  this  tendency. 

2d.  Philosophic  Christianity — Traces  of  this  development 
are  very  distinct  in  the  tendency  to  import  j)hilosophic  Judaism 
into*  Christian  doctrine.  This  is  esj)ecially  true  of  St.  Paul's 
teaching,  while  both  Hellenic  and  Judaistic  elements  are  notice- 
able in  the  doctrines  of  St.  John.  The  Pauline  doctrine  consisted 
of  man's  natural  depravity,  his  alienation  from  God,  sacrificial 
atonement,  and  justification  by  faith  :  the  Johannine  contribution 
was  mainly  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  sacrificial  atonement  and 
brotherly  love.  The  first  two  were  the  philosophical  and  the 
last  the  ethical  element.  The  doctrine  of  the  Logos  was 
the  Hellenic  element  introduced  to  rationalize  Christianity, 
while  the  doctrine  of  atonement,  both  in  Paul  and  John,  was  the 
Judaistic  element  introduced  to  maintain  the  continuity  of 
revelation  and  providence.  The  sense  of  sin  and  alienation  was 
common  to  Judaism  and  Neo-Platonism,  thougli  conceived  in 
the  fin-mer  as  a  moral  defect  of  man's  will  and  in  the  latter  as  a 
natural  consequence  or  imperfection  of  man's  corporeal  existence. 
Justification  by  faith  was  wholly  a  new  doctrine  and  grew  out  of 
the  personal  relation  between  master  and  disciple.     Faith  at  first 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  55 

was  only  a  quality  of  will  toward  a  person,  or  fidelity  to  person 
and  principle.  With  St.  Paul  it  began  gradually  to  rejjresent 
intellectual  assent  to  doctrine.  From  this  point  it  became  the 
chief  organ  of  Christian  belief  and  life,  as  reason  had  been  the 
organ  of  Greek  thought.  Christianity  was  called  upon  to  justify 
its  distinctive  doctrines.  The  systems  of  St.  John  and  St.  Paul 
were  attempts  at  this  result.  As  Judaism  declined  and  Gra;co- 
Roman  thought  prevailed,  philosophic  tendencies  increased  their 
demands  and  influence,  and  the  great  conflict  between  religion  and 
science  began.  On  the  one  hand,  Christianity  insisted  upon  the 
truth  of  its  distinctive  religious  beliefs,  and  in  lieu  of  reason  as  a 
court  of  judgment  was  content  wth  faith,  Avhile  philosophy 
repudiated  all  that  could  not  verify  its  credentials  before  the 
court  of  reason.  This  intellectual  contest  concerned  the  essential 
doctrines  of  Christianity  as  then  understood,  the  Trinity,  the 
atonement,  the  nature  of  God,  the  soul  and  its  immortality,  and 
the  principles  of  salvation.  Morality  took  the  channel  of 
charity  and  such  Christian  graces  and  virtues  as  represented  the 
new  order.  But  there  was  no  special  philosophy  of  Ethics.  The 
moral  consciousness  was  absorbed  in  reconciling  itself  with  God 
and  insuring  its  eternal  welfare.  A  theory  of  social  conduct 
and  duties  apart  from  salvation  hereafter  did  not  occupy  its 
attention.  The  whole  moral  movement  of  Christianity  had 
become  absorbed  in  religious  rites  and  philosophic  reflection  on 
its  doctrines.  But  the  conflict  between  reason  and  faith  con- 
tinued to  agitate  the  church  until  her  political  triumph  over  the 
Roman  -Empire.  Even  then  it  did  not  subside,  but  the  method 
of  dealing  with  the  problem  changed  into  a  practical  one. 

The  summary  of  the  main  features  of  this  second  period,  ex- 
tending down  to  about  the  ninth  century,  when  a  sort  of  truce 
between  the  two  contending  parties  was  concluded,  is  as  follows : 
First,  an  attempt  at  the  philosophic  justification  of  Christianity 
and  its  essential  doctrines.  Second,  the  practice  of  morality  with 
a  direct  reference  to  immortality.  Third,  the  adoption  of  ascetic 
and  monastic  conceptions  of  life,  in  virtue  of  the  need  of  redemp- 
tion. 


56  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

3d.  Ecclesiastical  Christianity. — The   triumpli  of  the  church 

and  the  downfall  of  Rome  gave  Christianity  a  new  method.  In 
fact,  the  reorganization  of  the  state  was  made  under  the  influence 
and  domination  of  the  church  and  is  well  called  the  Holy 
Roman  Empii'e.  Called  to  reconstruct  social  order  out  of  chaos, 
the  church  lost  no  time  in  patching  up  a  peace  with  the  philosophic 
sjiirit,  though  it  was  accomplished  partly  by  the  fusion  of  reason 
and  faith,  and  partly  by  the  exercise  of  her  imperial  authority. 
Previous  to  her  triumph  the  only  influence  to  be  relied  upon  for 
retaining  the  allegiance  of  her  votaries  was  a  moral  and  religious 
attachment  to  her  doctrines.  But  when  she  began  to  wield  eccle- 
siastical power  and  to  control  the  civil  authority,  her  influence 
was  both  changed  and  increased.  When  the  contest  between 
reason  and  faith  again  broke  out,  and  reason  threatened  to  dis- 
solve the  speculative  doctrines  of  the  church,  her  ecclesiastical 
23ower  was  strong  enough  to  decide  the  balance  in  favor  of  the 
authority  of  faith.  Arrogating  to  herself  the  claim  of  being  the 
sole  rej)ository  of  Christian  tradition  and  truth,  she  was  able  to 
place  the  stamp  of  authority  on  her  doctrines  as  well  as  her  civil 
laAvs,  and  in  lieu  of  the  ultimate  authority  of  reason,  claimed  by 
philosophy,  sul)stituted  the  infallibility  and  authority  of  her  de- 
crees. The  supreme  guide  of  the  individual,  l:)oth  in  matters  of 
truth  and  duty,  of  reason  and  conscience,  was  the  councils  of  the 
church  and  her  delegated  agents.  Under  cover  of  this  power  her 
priests  and  councils  regulated  the  beliefs  and  practices  of  her  mem- 
bers 'down  to  the  minutest  details.  IS'ot  only  the  rites  and  cere- 
monies of  religious  worship  came  under  their  jurisdiction,  but  also 
the  rights  and  manner  of  secular  emi:)loyments.  The  confessional 
was  the  means  of  carrying  out  this  policy  and  extended  its  au- 
thority into  all  the  privacy  and  secrets  of  the  family  and  of  the 
individual  heart.  The  confessional  was  a  substitute  for  individ- 
ual conscience,  and  served  as  an  ecclesiastical  restraint  upon  per- 
sonal liberty  precisely  as  the  political  S3'stem  of  Plato  was 
calculated  to  produce.  No  man  needed  to  be  the  judge  of  his  con- 
duct. Plis  life  was  surrendered  to  the  control  of  the  chui-ch.  His 
salvation,  moral  and  religious,  w'as  in  her  hands.     His  duty  was 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  57 

obedience  to  the  appointed  agents  of  the  church.  This  insured  his 
redemption.  He  had  only  to  conform  to  the  laws  of  the  church, 
if  he  wished  to  be  saved.  In  this  way  justification  by  works  was 
substituted  for  justification  by  faith,  and  a  vast  system  of  purely 
external  morality  established  in  place  of  the  love  and  good  will 
which  characterized  the  first  impulse  of  Christianity.  There  was 
no  theoretical  system  of  Ethics  apart  from  the  scheme  of  salvation. 
Civil  as  well  as  religious  duties  were  directed  by  the  same  end, 
and  sanctioned  by  the  same  authority.  The  state  was  a  part  of 
the  system  of  divine  government  looking  to  man's  spiritual  w^el- 
fare  and  salvation,  and  all  conduct  was  regulated  with  more  or 
less  reference  to  this  end,  and  regulated  by  a  hierarchical  power 
that  left  nothing  to  individual  initiation  and  freedom,  except  such 
as  it  was  imprudent  or  dangerous  to  interfere  with  or  disturb. 
The  chief  influence  of  this  social,  political  and  religious  condi- 
tion of  things,  subject  as  it  was  to  prelatical  dictation  and  con- 
trol was  to  imbue  the  vioral  consciousness  of  the  age  icith  the  sense 
and  reverence  for  authority/.  This  was  a  decidedly  better  moral 
condition  than  the  fear  of  arbitrary  power  which  dominated 
Greek  civilization,  because  it  insured  greater  stability  for  the 
social  system  and  voluntary  obedience  to  its  laws.  But  it  was, 
nevertheless,  an  attempt  to  determine  morality  from  without  in- 
stead of  from  within.  It  made  virtue  to  consist  wholly  in  ex- 
ternal conformity  to  law  while  using  the  motive  of  religious 
reverence  to  enforce  it,  instead  of  relying  upon  the  spontaneous 
choice  of  the  individual  will  to  determine  merit.  The  determina- 
tion of  the  course  of  conduct,  the  method  of  salvation,  was  left  to 
external  authority,  while  the  danger  of  resistance  was  overcome  by 
inculcating  reverence  for  it.  This  was  the  manner  in  which  sal- 
vation by  works  supplanted  justification  by  faith,  the  inner  prin- 
ciple of  regeneration  which  was  to  Christianity  what  Kant's 
"  good  will "  is  to  idealistic  Ethics.  Consequently  the  abandon- 
ment of  that  inner  principle  resulted  in  establishing  a  foreign 
authority  over  the  will,  and  both  the  moral  and  religious  con- 
sciousness became  a  dependency  upon  hierarchical  decrees,  though 
modified  by  the  voluntary  submission  and  respect  which  it  paid 


58  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

to  the  assumed  legitimacy  of  that  power.  Still  morality  sprang 
from  authority  and  was  independent  of  the  intelligence  and  good 
will  of  the  agent,  except  so  far  as  respectful  obedience  determined 
his  share  in  it. 

Side  by  side  with  this  ecclesiastical  system  there  developed 
occasionally  a  more  correct  view  of  morality,  and  one  that  was 
connected  with  the  cultivation  of  philosophy.  This  appears  first 
in  Abelard  (1079 — 1142  A.  D.),  who  in  many  respects  was  the 
founder,  but  in  respect  to  Ethics  was  the  Nemesis,  of  scholasticism. 
The  discussions  about  predestination,  the  sovereignty  of  God  and 
the  freedom  of  the  will  attracted  much  attention  as  affecting  the 
conception  of  sin  and  responsibility.  The  uj^holder  of  the  first 
two  doctrines  made  sin  to  consist  in  the  violation  of  the  law  with- 
out regard  to  the  motive.  But  whatever  was  to  be  said  of  pre- 
destination and  divine  sovereignty,  Abelard  saw  that  personal 
merit  and  demerit  depended  upon  the  character  and  choice  of  the 
will.  He  therefore  taught  that  virtue  con>:i*ts  in  the  intention 
and  not  in  the  act.  The  theological  point  of  view,  as  opposed  to 
the  naturalistic,  is  apparent  in  his  conception  of  the  highest  good. 
The  absolutely  highest  good,  he  considers,  is  God :  for  man,  it  is 
the  love  of  God.  The  way  that  leads  to  the  attainment  of  this 
good  is  virtue,  which  is  a  confirmed  habit  of  will  (honahi  habitum 
solidqta  voluntas).  But  it  is  in  the  motive  or  intention,  not  in 
the  act  per  se,  that  merit  and  demerit  reside.  This  intention 
depends  upon  the  consciousness  of  the  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong.  Hence  Abelard  lays  some  stress  upon  a  doctrine  of 
conscience,  as  opposed  to  objective  and  authoritative  morality. 
Albert  the  Great  and  Thomas  Aquinas  followed  more  or  less 
in  the  same  line  and  laid  down  principles  Avhich  were  resumed 
and  developed  in  the  Reformation.  They  were  all  based  upon  the 
freedom  of  the  individual  will  niul  were  the  germs  of  the  doctrine 
that  finally  dissolved  scholasticism. 

The  summary  of  this  whole  movement  will  contain  the  follow- 
ing elements.  Fird,  the  final  triumph  of  the  church  in  its  struggle 
with  the  state,  and  the  establishment  of  an  ecclesiastical  system 
controlling  the  entire  life  and  thought  of  the  individual.     Second, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  59 

the  continuance  of  the  struggle  between  reason  and  faitli  after 
their  temporary  reconciliation  until  faith  supplanted  reason  in  the 
determination  of  dogma.  Third,  the  regulation  of  individual 
conscience  by  authority,  which  was  the  necessary  outcome  of  the 
civil  power  of  the  church.  Fourth,  the  substitution  of  justifi- 
cation by  works  for  justification  by  faith.  Fifth,  the  spo- 
radic appearance  of  the  more  philosophic  doctrine  that  vir- 
tue was  internal  rather  than  external,  or  the  product  of  intention 
rather  than  purely  formal  obedience.  It  Avas  the  conflict  between 
the  last  two  ideas,  along  with  the  demand  for  secular  and  religious 
liberty  as  oj^posed  to  ecclesiastical  authority  that  brought  about 
the  Reformation  and  the  whole  modern  intellectual  movement. 

Ill  MODERN  ETHICS.— The  spirit  of  modern  life  repre- 
sents a  reaction  against  religious  and  ecclesiastical  authority  and 
so  is  5  return  to  naturalism,  as  it  may  be  called.  This  tendency 
very  profoundly  afiects  Ethics,  both  theoretical  and  practical.  It 
explains  the  desire  on  the  part  of  many  writers  to  emancipate 
morality  from  religion,  and  to  emphasize  secular  as  opposed  to 
religious  ideas.  The  movement  is  particularly  a  rejuvenation  of 
Greek  philosophy,  though  greatly  modified  in  its  spirit  and  con- 
tents by  the  influence  of  Christianity.  The  forces  which  repre- 
sent and  contributed  to  it  were  the  revival  of  literature,  Coper- 
nican  asti'onoray,  the  emancipation  of  Europe  from  papal  dictation, 
l^ewtoniau  gravitation  and  scientific  progress  with  all  the  later 
industrial,  scientific  and  economic  developments.  Two  early 
movements  have  not  been  included  in  this  list,  because  in  reality 
they  represented  the  main  impulses  of  the  reaction.  They  were 
the  religious  and  philosophic  reformations.  The  first  was  headed 
by  Luther  and  the  second  by  Descartes.  Both  attacked  the 
authority  of  the  church,  the  one  its  authority  over  conscience  and 
the  other  its  authority  over  speculative  reason.  Descartes  did  not 
rush  into  open  conflict  with  the  church,  but  his  philosophy  was 
irreconcilaVile  witli  its  dogmatic  method.  Descartes'  system  was 
rationalism  in  philosophy,  and  Protestantism  was  the  precursor  of 
rationalism  in  theology.  Both  emancipated  the  human  mind 
from  authority,  and  placed  individual  reason  upon  its  own  respou- 


60  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

sibilities.  Both  declared  principles  that  modified  the  direction 
and  content  of  ethical  reflection,  though  both  retained  the  religious 
conception  of  its  object.  The  philosophic  movement  divided  into 
two  main  tendencies,  the  empirical  and  psychological  of  English 
thought,  and  the  idealistic  of  continental  thought.  Each  of  them 
will  be  considered  in  an  independent  order.  But  we  shall  begin 
with  the  nature  and  influence  of  the  Protestant  Reformation. 

1st.  The  Theological  Reformation. — The  Protestant  Reform- 
ation was  the  fruit  of  general  intellectual,  social  and  religious 
unrest,  due  to  the  tyranny  and  corruption  of  the  papal  church- 
It  was  preceded  and  accompanied  by  those  discoveries  of  Colum- 
bus, Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  which  widened  the  horizon  of 
human  knowledge,  and  overthrew  the  traditions  of  the  past 
which  were  identified  too  closely  with  the  interests  of  the  church. 
These  influences  were  in  the  direction  of  greater  freedom  of  thought, 
but  would  have  accomplished  less  than  they  did,  had  not  the 
revolt  of  Protestantism  secured  a  religious  reformation,  as 
science  and  philosophy  secured  the  intellectual.  But  these  are 
not  the  elements  that  connect  Protestantism  ivith  the  develop- 
ment of  Ethics.  These  factors  are  comprehended  in  what  the 
movement  stood  for  as  a  revolt  against  ecclesiastic  policy  and 
authority.  Protestantism  represented  two  principles  connected 
with  the  same  end,  the  practical  and  the  doctrinal.  The  first 
was  the  assertion  of  individual  conscience  against  the  moral  cor- 
ruption of  the  church,  the  vices  of  the  clergy,  the  sale  of  indul- 
gences, monastic  disorders,  and  similar  oflfences.  The  second 
and  doctrinal  reform  was  the  correlate  of  the  first,  and  was  the 
reassertion  of  justification  by  faith.  Both  of  these  affected  the 
problems  of  Ethics.  The  first  substituted  conscience  for  the 
authority  of  ecclesiastical  power,  and  the  second  restored  the 
original  Christian  position  that  moral  regeneration  is  internal. 
This  latter  doctrine  was  the  central  and  essential  principle  of 
Protestantism.  What  it  meant  for  Ethics  was  the  entire  dis- 
placement of  ecclesiastical  authority,  so  laboriously  established 
by  scholasticism,  and  the  substitution  of  the  individual  con- 
science in  its  place.     In  this  salvation,  temporal  and  eternal, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  Gl 

was  the  result,  not  of  works,  but  of  faith.  Man  was  brought  by 
this  course  into  direct  communion  with  God  through  his  own 
conscience  and  religious  insight.  He  required  no  human  inter- 
mediation, as  the  priestly  practices  of  the  period  implied.  Ilis 
justification  came  by  faith,  the  inner  principle  of  the  soul  which 
is  the  spring  of  every  regenerated  will,  because  it  is  the  surrender 
of  the  soul  to  God,  and  the  perfections  which  he  represents. 
But  Protestantism  did  not  abandon  all  that  was  contained  in  the 
idea  of  authority.  So  abrupt  a  course  is  hardly  to  be  expected 
in  any  age.  It  simply  transferred  the  idea  from  the  church  to 
revelation,  from  human  to  divine  agency.  Revolting  against 
the  papal  system,  it  could  not  resort  to  a  similar  method  for 
determining  the  ground  of  its  own  doctrines,  and  must  perforce 
yield  to  the  natural  demands  of  the  time  for  authority  in 
support  of  its  claims.  This  it  sought  for  religion,  in  revelation, 
and 'for  morality,  in  conscience,  enlightened  and  governed  by 
revelation.  Here  arose  the  distinction  that  has  characterized 
the  two  separate,  or  supposably  separate,  fields  of  Ethics  and 
religion,  and  later  Rationalism  took  it  up  to  concentrate  its 
emphasis  upon  the  former.  Ethics  came  to  represent  duties  to 
man,  and  religion  duties  to  God.  Conscience  was  the  organ  of 
morality,  and  faith  the  organ  of  religion  with  revelation  as  its 
guide.  In  neither  case,  however,  did  the  new  position  succeed 
in  eliminating  older  assumptions  made  to  guarantee  the  dogmas 
of  the  church.  The  doctrine  of  infallibility  and  of  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  church  was  the  natural  consequence  of  its  sub- 
ordination of  the  civil  power,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  its  sup- 
pression of  reason,  on  the  other.  In  Protestantism  it  divided  its 
jurisdiction.  The  infallibility  and  authority  of  revelation  sup- 
planted that  of  the  church  and  the  pope,  and  was  the  warrant 
for  religious  truth,  while  the  infallibility  and  authority  of  con- 
science was  and  is  the  survival  in  Ethics  of  the  ecclesiastical 
doctrine  in  regard  to  the  basis  of  both  morality  and  religion. 
The  foundation  of  morality  and  of  salvation  was  thus  shifted 
over  to  the  subject  of  them,  and  the  whole  doctrine  of  religion 
made  compatible  with  the  idea  of  freedom,  whether  personal  or 


62    '  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

political,  and  subsequent  development  in  the  direction  of  political 
and  religious  liberty  was  made  possible.  Justification  by  faith, 
therefore,  was  the  source  of  modern  individualism,  so  far'  as  re- 
sponsibility is  concerned,  and  as  opposed  to  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity and  mediation ;  discredited  ritualism  in  religion,  and  deter- 
mined the  modern  doctrine  of  conscience  with  its  concej)tion  of 
personality  and  character,  or  good  will,  as  the  most  essential 
condition  of  morality. 

A  brief  summary  of  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  will 
include  the  following  points.  First,  the  restoration  of  the  inner 
and  subjective  principle  of  morality,  due  to  the  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication by  faith.  Second,  the  transfer  of  the  idea  of  authority 
from  the  church  to  conscience  and  revelation.  Third,  the  free- 
dom and  responsibility  of  the  individual  for  his  moral  and  spirit- 
ual salvation,  thus  setting  aside  human  mediation  and  influence 
from  without.  Fourth,  the  separation  of  morality  and  religion, 
at  least  in  their  sanctions  and  object,  if  not  in  regard  to  their 
source  or  ultimate. 

2d.  The  Philosophical  Reformation. — The  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  Avhich  was  the  original  impulse 
of  the  philosophical  reformation,  was  the  same  in  its  nature  as 
that  of  the  religious  reformation.  It  was  a  revolt  against  dog- 
matic methods  and  authority,  and  the  restoration  of  individual 
reason  to  its  place  in  the  determination  of  truth,  with  the  impli- 
cation which  it  carried^long  with  its  method,  that  knowledge  and 
virtue  are  subjectively  conditioned,  that  is,  have  a  mental  source, 
whatever  may  be  said  of  other  influences.  Descartes  began  with 
philosophic  doubt  of  every  assertion  which  could  not  appear  as 
clear  and  distinct  truth.  To  him  clear  and  distinct  ideas  were 
either  those  which  had  an  intuitive  origin  and  were  the  con- 
ditions of  all  thought,  or  those  which  followed  necessarily  from 
admitted  truths.  He  would  accept  no  others  than  such  as  could 
present  these  credcnitals.  Hence  he  put  to  tlie  severest  test  all 
beliefs  about  the  existence  of  an  external  world,  of  matter,  of  a 
soul,  of  God.  He  found  that  he  could  doubt  everything  but  the 
fact  of  the  doubt,  the  fact  of  consciousness,  and  in  this  he  found 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  63 

necessarily  implied  his  own  existance.  Hence  tlic  basal  formula 
of  his  method  and  system  was  Cogito,  ergo  sum  (I  think  or  am 
conscious ;  therefore  I  exist.)  From  this  he  developed  his  belief 
in  the  existence  of  God,  of  matter  and  of  the  soul.  In  thus  sub- 
tracting, or  thinking  away  everything  except  consciousness, 
Descartes  laid  the  foundation  of  modern  Idealism  which  assumes 
the  subjective  method  of  treating  knowdedge  and  a  Joriiori  the 
phenomena  of  morality.  It  altered  the  point  of  view  pre- 
dominent  in  scholasticism  which  asserted  the  principle  of 
authority  and  permitted  nothing  to  individual  reason.  Descartes 
emancipated  the  individual  in  philosophy  as  Luther  did  in 
religion,  and  so  set  up  an  internal  principle  as  the  criterion  of 
truth.  This  reacted  on  the  princij)les  of  Ethics  and  carried  the 
idealistic  impulse  into  that  field  until  it  terminated  in  the  fully 
developed  system  of  Kant  and  his  school. 

When  Descartes  came  to  discuss  ethical  problems  directly,  he 
seeks  first  after  the  manner  of  Greek  ethics  to  determine  the 
highest  good,  which  he  finds  to  be  virtue  and  happiness,  or 
freedom  and  blessedness.  He  combines  the  ideal  of  the  Stoics 
and  the  Epicureans.  There  is  in  this  two  systems  of  morality ; 
one  empirical  and  determining  the  rules  for  the  bodily  life, 
rendering  possible  a  control  over  the  passions,  and  the  other 
resting  upon  the  good  will  and  assuring  the  soul's  independence 
and  a  spiritual  felicity  which  depends  upon  the  soul  alone.  This 
was  carrying  his  dualism  into  Ethics.  His  doctrine  of  autom- 
atism, or  the  automatic  nature  of  animal  functions,  prevented  the 
success  of  this  attempt,  but  it  remained  in  Kant's  view  that 
pleasure  is  a  necessary  object  of  volition,  and  opposed  the  freedom 
of  obedience  to  the  sense  of  duty. 

Descartes  maintained  firmly  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and 
owing  to  his  identification  of  judgment  and  the  will  carried  the 
doctrine  so  far  as  to  assert  responsibility  for  our  beliefs,  to  at 
least  a  limited  extent.  The  supreme  motive  to  morality  he 
made  the  love  of  God,  coinciding  in  this  position  with  the  relig- 
ious consciousness.  He  empliasized  the  limitations  of  nature 
imposed  upon  the  human  will  and  desires,  and  recommended  as  a 


64  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

duty  the  adjustment  of  our  desires  to  its  inflexible  laws  rather 
than  an  attempt  to  change  the  order  of  the  world.  Herein  was 
the  Stoic  element  of  his  doctrine,  and  it  determined  the  prom- 
inent characteristics  of  Spinoza's  Ethics. 

Descartes,  however,  had  very  little  to  say  directly  on  the 
problem  of  ethics.  He  was  most  deeply  interested  in  metaphysics 
and  the  theory  of  knowledge.  His  influence  upon  Ethics, 
therefore,  was  indirect  and  merely  fortified  by  philosophic  as- 
sumptions the  general  tendency  of  the  reaction  against  scholas- 
ticism. Its  chief  influences  were  derived  from  the  following: 
First,  the  establishment  of  consciousness  as  the  ultimate  criterion 
of  truth  and  goodness.  This  was  the  assertion  of  reason,  in 
opposition  to  authority,  as  the  ground  of  knowledge  and  obliga- 
tion. Second,  the  founding  of  Idealism  and  its  subjective 
method.  Third,  the  maintenance  of  the  freedom  of  the  will. 
Fourth,  the  assertion  that  virtue  or  the  good  will  has  a  moral 
value  on  its  own  account  and  not  merely  as  a  means  to  happi- 
ness, though  this  is  its  natural  consequence.  Fifth,  submission 
and  adjustment  of  desire  to  the  necessary  order  of  nature. 
Sixth,  the  love  of  God  as  the  chief  motive  of  conduct,  or  con- 
dition of  mind  in  Avhich  to  live.  These  several  momenta  in  the 
Cartesian  system  will  be  apparent  to  all  who  study  its  develop- 
ment. 

In  following  now  the  subsequent  development  of  ethical 
doctrine  we  can  only  select  certain  representatives  of  general 
schools.  It  is  not  necessary  to  detail  the  views  of  each 
author  since  we  are  not  presenting  a  complete  history  of  ethics. 
Hence  Ave  shall  only  outline  the  general  direction  of  the  main 
streams  of  thought,  selecting  for  this  purjoose  the  Continental 
and  the  English  movements,  or  the  idealistic  and  the  em2)irical 
schools,  with  ithcir  main  representatives. 

3d.  The  Idealistic  Movement. — The  chief  representatives  of 
this  school  include  Spinoza,  Leibnitz  and  Kant,  all  tluit  need 
consideration  in  ascertaining  the  nature  of  modern  ethical 
problems.  They  arc  regarded  as  idealistic  ])ccause  they  set  up 
moral  principles  of  a  docidcdly  sul)jective  character,  and  superior 


DEVELOP.MEyr-  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  65 

to  mere  physical  naturalism,  and  develop  Cartesianism  to  its 
logical  consequences  in  the  direction  of  idealistic  methods. 
Omitting  INIalebranche,  who  is  unimportant,  we  take  up  Spinoza. 
1.  Spinoza. — Spinoza  based  his  Ethics  upon  a  thoroughly 
worked  out  system  of  metaphysics.  In  producing  this  he  simply 
turned  the  dualism  of  Descartes  into  monism.  Descartes  held 
that  there  were  two  kinds  of  separate  substances,  mind  and  mat- 
ter, each  without  any  participation  in  the  nature  or  qualities  of 
the  other.  Extension  was  the  essence  of  matter,  and  conscious- 
ness the  essence  of  mind.  The  independence  of  matter  which 
characterized  mind  was  a  ground  for  maintaining  the  freedom  of 
the  will,  because  it  was  the  subject  of  its  own  phenomena.  The 
existence  of  God  was  asserted  as  an  absolute  substance  and  the 
creator  of  matter  and  mind.  But  Spinoza  started  by  denying 
the  substantial  nature  of  mind  and  matter.  He  simply  took  their 
distinctive  qualities,  extension  and  thought,  and  made  them  the 
attributes  of  a  single  substance,  God  and  dissolved  dualism,  by 
asserting  pantheistic  monism.  The  effect  of  this  was  to  make 
man  a  mere  mode  of  the  Absolute,  and  so  to  destroy  all  possibil- 
ity of  the  freedom  of  the  will.  Hence,  Spinoza  denied  this  free- 
dom and  maintained  that  man  could  not  choose  otherwise  than 
he  does  on  each  pai-ticular  occasion  of  choice.  His  actions  are  a 
mere  product  of  the  Absolute.  From  the  same  conception  of 
dependence  on  God  came  the  emphasis  which  Spinoza  placed 
upon  the  limitations  of  the  human  will.  The  course  of  nature, 
according  to  him,  is  an  inflexible  one.  It  is  a  vast  mechanism 
acting  in  accordance  vnih.  laws  which  pay  no  regard  to  man's 
desires  and  ideals.  Human  nature  is  a  part  of  this  system,  and 
human  actions  a  result  of  it.  Freedom  is  an  illusion.  Absolute 
good  and  evil  do  not  exist.  Praise  and  blame,  as  if  the  conduct 
of  man  could  be  otherwise  than  it  is,  are  absurd.  We  must  learn 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  necessary  course  of  nature.  The  highest 
good  is  a  life  according  to  this  law  of  nature,  which  is  also  the 
law  of  reason.  This  Spinoza  made  "the  intellectual  love  of 
God  "  {amor  iniellectualis  Dei),  or  rational  regard  for  the  laws 
of  the  mechanical  ^^orld,  as  it  must  be  considered  in  his  system. 


66  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

Man's  duty  consists  in  freeing  himself  from  the  control  of  his 
passions,  and  his  felicity  comes  from  a  reverent  submission  to  his 
fate.  How  he  can  gain  either  of  these  ends  is  not  clear  from  the 
principles  of  his  system,  and,  moreover,  it  is  hardly  a  misrepre- 
sentation to  regard  his  "  intellectual  love  of  God  "  as  mere  sci- 
entific curiosity.  It  has  the  religious  form  of  expression,  but  the 
m£teria,listic  pantheism  of  his  philosophy,  and  the  purely  specu- 
lative interest  of  his  thought  eviscerate  that  formula  of  all  its  re- 
ligious import,  and  with  the  denial  of  free  will  there  was  nothing 
left  but  his  own  somewhat  romantic  and  sublime  character  to 
adorn  the  theory. 

Spinoza's  influence  upon  the  main  problems  of  theoretical 
Ethics  was  chiefly  negative.  He  was  among  the  first  to  boldly 
challenge  the  current  conceptions  of  free  will  and  responsibility. 
He  could  do  so  more  effectively  because,  unlike  scholastic  the- 
ology, which  had  behind  its  denial  of  free  will,  at  times,  the  per- 
sonality and  grace  of  God,  to  rob  the  theory  of  its  practical  conse- 
quences, Spinoza,  in  spite  of  his  pious  phraseology,  represents  a 
purely  materialistic  conception  of  the  universe,  with  man  a  mere 
mode  of  it,  a  bubble  on  a  shoreless  ocean  of  force,  floating  for  a 
moment  on  its  troubled  surface,  and  disappearing  forever  at  the 
touch  of  the  first  wind  of  change.  His  thought  was  the  mechan- 
ical side  of  Cartesian  philosophy,  representing  the  scientific  reac- 
tion against  the  spiritualistic  character  of  mediaeval  ideas,  though 
expressed  in  mystical  and  religious  language,  and  in  this  way 
brought  to  the  front  a  complete  antithesis  to  the  benevolent  and 
providential  scheme  of  orthodox  theology.  Consequently,  his 
influence  upon  ethical  speculation  and  the  practical  moral  con- 
sciousness, was  to  present  inexorable  limitations  to  the  fulfill- 
ment of  natural  desires  and  the  impla(?able  laws  of  nature,  to 
which  man  must  adjust  himself  if  he  would  attain  felicity.  Mod- 
ern evolution  emphasizes  the  same  conception,  and  no  system, 
except  Spinoza's,  has  so  comprehensively  stated  the  finitude  and 
dependence  of  man  upon  the  vast  infinitude  of  forces  which  we 
call  the  world.  The  realization  of  this  condition  is  the  incentive 
to  humility  and  obedience,  which  are  the  special  virtues  of  Spin- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  67 

oza's  thought,  and  which  have  especially  recommended  him  to 
the  scientific  student.  Hence,  the  calm,  stoical  composure  with 
which  Spinoza  contemplated  the  laws  of  nature,  and  urged  the 
control  of  passion  in  order  to  live  in  harmony  vnih  tliem.  The 
moral  consciousness  which  his  pantheism  and  materialism  pro- 
duced was  one  of  submission  to  the  inevitable,  and  represents 
the  whole  modern  reaction  against  the  supernatural. 

The  elements  of  his  system  were  as  follows. — First,  pantheistic 
monism  with  its  reduction  of  man  to  a  mode  or  phenomenon  of 
the  Absolute.  Second,  the  denial  of  free  will  or  the  power  of 
alternative  choice.  Third,  man's  highest  good  consists  in  his 
freedom  from  passion,  or  from  desires  that  are  in  conflict  with  the 
order  of  nature.  Fourth,  the  inculcation  of  that  moral  conscious- 
ness which  humbly  and  obediently  yields  to  the  inexorable  laws 
of  nature.  These  principles  exhibit  a  system  quite  in  contrast 
with  ordinary  views  and  in  particular  are  opposed  to  the  ethics 
of  Kant. 

2.  Leibxitz. — The  ethical  doctrine  of  Leibnitz  was  a  return  to 
some  of  the  fundamental  positions  abandoned  by  Spinoza,  though 
intended  to  conciliate  Spinoza's  doctrine  with  the  theological  pre- 
sumptions of  the  age.  Thus,  Leibnitz  retained  monism  as  a  phil- 
osophic Theory :  but  it  was  atomistic  as  opposed  to  pantheistic 
monism,  and  in  this  way  he  sustained  a  doctrine  which  made 
possible  the  freedom  of  the  will.  The  fundamental  unit  of  exist- 
tence  was  a  monad,  which  he  regarded  as  indivisible  and  perma- 
nent. It  was  distinguished  from  the  Lucretian  atom  in  that  its 
nature  was"not  material.  Hence,  Leibnitz  regarded  the  basis  of 
existence  as  immaterial.  He  asserted  a  difference  between  mo- 
nads, but  it  was  a  difference  in  degrees  of  activity.  Their  sub- 
stance was  the  same;  their  modes  were  different.  Hence,  a 
series  of  gradations,  representing  the  law  of  continuity,  existed 
between  the  unconscious,  or  so-called  material  monad  and  the 
conscious  or  spiritual  monad.  But  it  was  the  independent  exist- 
ence of  the  monad  and  its  power  of  self-activity  without  deter- 
mination from  the  influence  of  any  other  monad  (Spinoza's  freedom 
of  the  Absolute)  that  enabled  Leibnitz  to  maintain  the  freedom  of 


68  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  will.  It  was  in  this  fuudamental  position  that  he  differed  so 
radically  from  his  predecessor.  He  had  his  own  special  theory 
about  the  close  relation  between  the  lower  and  higher  forms  of 
volition,  of  the  gradual  development  of  rational  activity  from  the 
instinctive,  but  he  based  his  whole  theory  of  morality  upon  the 
freedom  of  the  will,  which  he  saw"  was  necessary,  if  Ethics  was  to 
be  regarded  as  possible.  He  distinguished,  however,  between  the 
freedom  of  indifference,  or  indeterminism  (equilibre'),  as  it  w'as 
called,  and  the  freedom  of  determinism,  which  meant  that  the 
subject  had  a  predominant  inclination  in  one  direction,  though 
not  fatally  nor  externally  determined.  Hence,  Leibnitz  denied 
both  necessitarianism  and  the  freedom  of  indifference  and  main- 
tained a  theory  of  determinism  which  meant  that  volition  w^as 
caused  by  the  subject  and  that  it  was  according  to  the  law  of  the 
subject's  nature.  Thus  he  admitted  the  predominant  tendencies 
of  the  individual's  character  while  he  affirmed  free,  original  and 
spontaneous  volition.  This  freedom  he  made  to  be  action  in  con- 
formity with  reason  and  in  this  way  recognized  the  main  conten- 
tion of  Spinoza. 

When  he  came  to  consider  the  object  of  conduct  he  recognized 
happiness  as  the  highest  good.  But  this  he  seems  at  the  same 
time  to  have  regarded  as  the  accompaniment  of  perfection. 
Pleasure,  he  said,  is  the  feeling  of  perfection,  pain,  of  imperfection. 
He  sometimes  speaks  of  happiness  and  perfection  as  if  they  were 
identical,  or  as  if  they  together  constituted  the  highest  good. 
Instinct  sought  this  as  a  natural  object  of  volition,  but  reason 
only  could  seek  it  as  a  moral  object ;  because  instinci  was  not  a 
sure  guide.  It  was  confused  and  indistinct  in  its  operation.  His 
whole  system  also  bore  a  close  relation  to  his  theory  of  optimism. 

3.  Kant. — The  philosophy  of  Immanuel  Kant  represents  the 
confluence  of  two  great  streams  of  thought,  those  of  Locke  and 
Descartes.  From  Locke  he  obtained  the  empirical  element  of 
his  system,  which  appears  in  the  limitation  of  knowledge  to 
experience,  and  from  Descartes  the  idealistic  basis  which  led  to 
the  assertion  of  the  a  priori  conditions  of  experience,  represented 
in  the  forms  of  perception  (space  and  time)  and  the  categories  of 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  69 

the  uuderstandiug  (Quantity,  Quality,  Modality,  and  Relation). 
Thus  he  admitted  "  intuitive,"  "  innate,"  "  a  priori,"  or  underived 
principles  of  thought,  though  he  confined  them  to  the  field  of 
experience,  and  would  not  extend  them  beyond  it.  They  were 
immanent  in  experience  instead  of  tmnseending  it.  That  istosuy, 
whatever  fundamental  principles  of  truth  were  to  be  recognized, 
they  were  laics  of  thought  rather  than  ideas  distinct  from  sense 
deliverances  whether  inner  or  outer.  But  having  made  the 
forms  of  perception  and  the  categories,  or  conditions  of  conscious- 
ness, subjective  and  ideal,  he  placed  idealism  upon  a  firmer  and 
more  radical  footing  than  ever  before,  and  so  prepared  the  way 
for  a  more  thorough-going  idealism  in  Ethics.  There  were  also 
subordinate  contributions  from  diiferent  members  of  the  same 
school  tending  in  the  same  direction.  Hume  determined  his 
scepticism  in  a  large  measure  especially  on  the  side  of  metaphysics, 
Berkeley  had  disputed  the  existence  of  matter,  and  Hume  on  the 
same  grounds  disputed  that  of  mind,  causality,  personal  iden- 
tity, etc.,  leaving  nothing  but  "impressions,"  or  experience, 
as  the  data  of  knowledge.  Kant  follows  this  up  with  the 
distinction  between  noumena',  or  things  in  themselves  (Dinge  an 
sich)  and  phenomena,  or  appearances  {ErseJieimung),  asserting  that 
the  latter  is  all  we  know,  while  the  former  are  unknowable,  though 
asserted  to  exist.  His  scepticism  thus  applied  to  the  nature  of 
things,  but  not  to  their  effect  upon  the  ego  or  subject. 

No  less  striking  was  Hume's  influence  upon  Kant's  ethical 
doctrine.  Hume  had  denied  the  connection  of  reason  both  with 
moral  distinctions  and  with  the  motivation  of  the  will,  and 
affirmed  it  only  of  a  "  moral  sense  "  which  was  a  feeling  or  emo- 
tional function.  This  was  subjective  while  reason  was  occupied 
with  the  objective.  Farther,  Hume  denied  that  conduct,  exter- 
nally considered,  could  have  either  merit  or  demerit,  and  thus 
taking  up  the  non-moral  character  of  all  events  and  actions 
independent  of  the  will,  Kant  was  forced,  like  Hume,  to  place 
morality  in  the  motive  or  condition  of  the  will.  The  stoical 
spirit  and  severity  of  Spinoza  are  repeated  in  the  rigidity  of 
Kant's  law  of  duty,  though  they  were  probably  influenced  less 


70  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

by  Spiaoza's  philosophy  than  by  the  temperament  and  early 
training  of  Kant  himself.  The  monistic  and  idealistic  tendency 
of  Kant  were  affected  by  both  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz,  though  it 
was  the  outcome  of  the  psychology  of  Leibnitz  more  than  of  the 
metaphysics  of  Sj)inoza.  From  Leibnitz  also  he  probably  drcAV 
the  conceptions  which  aided  him  in  sustaining  the  doctrine  of 
freedom.  But  there  were  general  tendencies  acting  in  this 
direction  by  their  antithesis  to  every  doctrine  of  free  will. 
These  were  the  natural  consequences  of  two  movements,  the 
scientific  and  the  philosophical.  On  the  one  hand,  the  renais- 
sance had  brought  with  it  a  strong  admiration  of  the  natural  in 
Greek  life,  and  Coperuican  astronomy  and  Newtonian  gravita- 
tion had  immensely  extended  the  conception  of  physical  laws, 
destroying  the  last  traces  of  the  ancient  theory  that  the  heavenly 
bodies  were  of  a  divine  essence.  The  physical  sciences  had 
received  large  accessions  in  the  discoveries  of  Pascal,  Huyghens, 
Bernoulli,  and  others,  so  that  the  sense  of  mystery  was  fast  dis- 
api^earing  before  the  light  of  natural  knowledge,  and  a  sharply 
defined  mechanical  conception  of  the  world  was  supplanting  the 
spiritualistic  theology  of  scholasticism.  This  was  the  purely 
scientific  movement,  and  Kant  shared  in  it  to  the  extent  that, 
simultaneously  with  La  Place  he  outlined  a  nebular  hypothesis 
to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  solar  system  upon  physical  prin- 
ciples. On  the  other  hand,  Descartes  stimulated  by  his  interest 
in  mathematics  and  mechanics,  had  reduced  all  phenomena  of 
the  universe,  except  those  of  consciousness,  to  mechanical  laws, 
and  included  in  them  all  the  actions  of  organic  life  and  the  ani- 
mal world  below  the  rational  intelligence  of  man.  Animals 
were  automata  and  no  more  conscious  in  their  actions  than  all 
unconscious  beings.  At  least  consciousness  was  not  the  cause  of 
their  actions.  Consequently  both  the  scientific  and  the  philo- 
sophic movement  had  produced  a  widespread  tendency  toward 
materialism  and  its  implications  that  all  events  were  to  be  re- 
duced to  invariable  and  mechanical  laws.  Leibnitz  felt  this,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  the  extent  that  he  denied  the  freedom  of  indif- 
ference and  admitted  only  a  freedom  that  could  be  consistent 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  71 

with  predominant  inclinations  in  a  given  direction.  Kant, 
therefore,  came  Avhen  he  must  either  abandon  Ethics  to  the 
physical  sciences  or  vindicate  the  freedom  of  the  will  in  order  to 
save  morality.  This  fact  made  that  doctrine  the  key  to  his 
ethical  theory,  while  its  obverse  side  was  found  in  the  "  cate- 
gorical imperative,"  which,  as  a  fact  of  human  consciousness  was 
both  the  proof  of  freedom  and  the  essential  element  of  all  moral- 
ity. These  complimentary  aspects  of  his  doctrine,  the  categor- 
ical imperative  and  the  freedom  of  the  will,  were  attempts  at 
correcting  the  dangerous  tendencies  of  the  age ;  the  former  to 
represent  a  principle  for  regulating  the  lawlessness  of  the  human 
will  as  it  began  to  demand  political  freedom,  and  to  stamp  con- 
duct with  the  nobility  of  the  ancient  virtues  practiced  in  sub- 
ordination to  social  welfare,  and  the  latter  to  counteract  the 
consequences  of  a  mechanical  and  materialistic  conception  of  the 
world. 

Starting  with  the  ideas  of  duty  and  freedom  Kant  had  to 
give  his  ethical  system  a  firm  foundation,  and  this  was  the 
more  necessary  because  of  the  negative  result  of  his  "Metaphysics. 
It  was,  in  fact,  this  negative  result  that  prompted  him  to  the 
reconstruction  of  Ethics.  Like  Plato,  the  object  of  his  philoso- 
phy centred  in  moral  problems,  but,  unlike  Plato,  he  did  not 
seek  their  basis  in  Metaphysics.  His  dissatisfaction  with  the 
Leibnitzo-AVollfian  dogmatism  and  the  sceptical  influence  of 
Hume,  taken  with  the  general  reaction  against  scholasticism, 
which  had  based  everything  upon  theological  and  metaphysical 
assumptions,  had  induced  him  to  analyze  the  fundamental  con- 
ceptions of  Ontology,  Theology,  and  Psychology.  In  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,  therefore,  he  denied  the  sufiiciency  of  the  argu- 
ments for  the  existence  of  God,  the  existence  of  the  soul,  and 
the  freedom  of  the  will.  On  these  the  previous  systems  of 
Ethics  were  founded,  and  hence,  in  order  to  avoid  a  dogmatic 
foundation  for  its  principles,  Kant  saw  no  other  way  to  treat 
the  questions  than  to  destroy  the  speculative  foundations  upon 
which  scholasticism  had  built  them.  He  resolved  to  reconstruct 
Ethics  without  any  transcendental  Metaphysics  for  its  support. 


72  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

But  having  affirmed  that  reason  was  not  adequate  to  the  task  of 
proving  the  speculative  ideas  of  science  and  philosophy,  he 
Avould  seem  to  have  cut  off  his  return  to  a  basis  for  moralit}^ 
Nevertheless,  Kant  makes  the  effort  by  drawing  a  radical  dis- 
tinction between  two  functions  of  reason,  the  theoretical  or  specu- 
lative, and  the  practical  or  postulative.  Pure  or  speculative 
reason,  he  maintained,  could  not  assure  us  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Ontology,  Theology,  and  Psychology,  though  prac- 
tical reason  might  do  so.  This  position  was  decidedly  paradoxi- 
cal. It  will  appear  less  so,  however,  when  we  suppose  that  by 
pure  or  theoretical  reason  Kant  meant  the  explanatory  function 
of  consciousness,  which  could  not  give  an  assurance  of  its  objects 
as  inexpugnable  as  the  practical  reason  which  postulated  them 
as  facts  to  account  for  phenomena,  but  did  not  pretend  to  inves- 
tigate their  grounds.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  the  distinction 
will  always  appear  unsatisfactory,  and  gives  rise  to  confusion. 
But  its  motive  was  an  intelligible  one,  namely,  to  reconstruct 
Ethics  independently  of  current  metaphysical  assumptions.  Here 
began  modern  rationalism  in  Theology  and  Ethics,  and  with  it 
the  secularization  of  morality,  or  the  separation  of  Ethics  and  re- 
ligion. 

After  the  destructive  conclusions  of  the  first  part  of  his  phi- 
1<  »sophy,  Kant  showed  a  double  tendency  in  the  reconstruction  of 
Ethics.  First,  he  had  to  indicate  a  function  for  establishing 
morality  upon  a  basis  independent  of  metaphysics  ;  second,  his 
speculative  interests  induced  him  to  postulate  from  practical 
reason  the  ideas  rejected  by  speculative  reason,  but  now  asserted, 
not  as  conditioiiH  of  morality,  but  as  implications  of  it,  or  sup- 
plementary truths  in  which  it  culminated.  The  first  of  these 
gave  morality  a  psychological  ground,  and  the  second  compensated 
for  the  removal  of  its  dependence  on  Metaphysics.  Each  of 
these  aspects  must  be  considered  separately. 

The  principle  upon  which  Kant  found  a  basis  for  Ethics  was 
the  distinction  between  the  natural  and  the  moral,  and  the 
denial  that  the  latter  could  be  deduced  from  the  former.  Hav- 
ing reduced  all  the  pheiionicna  of  sense  and  of  the  understand- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  73 

iug  ;  that  is,  of  nature  and  of  consciousness,  in  so  far  as  they 
were  events  objective  to  reason,  to  the  law  of  causality  or  neces- 
sity, Kant's  problem  was  to  find  a  fact  w'hich  could  not  be  so 
reduced.  He  sought  this  in  the  categorical  imperative,  which 
was  the  ideal  of  practical  reason,  the  declaration  of  Avhat  ought 
to  be,  as  contrasted  with  what  merely  is.  The  natural  sciences, 
including  physics  and  empirical  psychology,  treated  all  events  as 
the  natural  effect  of  causes  which  did  not  represent  volition  as 
the  initiating  antecedent,  and  hence  were  the  product  of  neces- 
sity. They  explain  phenomena,  and  cannot  legislate  for  the 
will.  We  cannot  say  that  any  event  "  ought "  to  be ;  we  can 
only  say  that  it  is,  and  that  under  the  conditions  it  must  be. 
But  if  the  science  of  Ethics  be  possible  we  must  be  able  to  assert 
that  some  end  ought  to  be  realized  ;  some  object  must  be  uncon- 
ditionally commanded,  and  this  can  in  no  case  be  derived  merely 
from  the  facts  of  observation.  This  desideratum  Kant  found  in 
the  sense  of  duty,  or  categorical  imperative,  which  is  uncondi- 
tionally binding,  simply  because  it  is  an  a  priori  product  of 
practical  reason.  Hence  Ethics  is  possible  because  it  imposes  a 
law,  and  does  not  explain  facts.  Morality  is  thus  independent 
of  the  natural  and  necessary. 

Kant's  next  step  was  to  formulate  this  law,  which  should  be 
free  from  every  element  of  experience.  The  first  and  purely 
formal  statement  of  it  was  that  "  ive  should  act  so  that  the  maxim 
of  our  conduct  could  be  made  a  laivfor  all  rational  beings  ;  "  that 
is,  a  principle  of  universal  legislation.  This  was  his  most  gen- 
eral test  for  the  character  of  any  rule  of  action,  and  though  it 
was  merely  negative  in  showing  the  suicidal  nature  of  any  prin- 
ciple which  did  not  conform  to  it,  the  maxim  was  too  abstract  to 
satisfy  all  claims  made  upon  a  moral  law.  Hence  Kant  under- 
took to  complete  it  by  indicating  the  object  to  which  the  law 
was  to  be  applied.  It  was  not  sufficient  that  action  should  be 
merely  uniform,  consistent,  or  according  to  law.  The  object 
concerned  should  also  be  taken  into  account.  Purely  formal 
obedience  to  it,  which  expressed  the  good  will,  might  indicate 
the  character  of  the  agent,  and  satisfy  all  that  could  be  do- 


74  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

maucled  of  the  law  for  the  subject,  but  it  did  not  suffice  to  sup- 
ply a  complete  criterion  in  the  complexities  of  social  life. 
Hence  for  more  concrete  purposes,  Kant  adds  another  concep- 
tion to  the  law,  so  that  it  will  recognize  the  persons  concerned  in 
the  exercise  of  volition.  It  then  reads  that  the  law  of  morality 
commands  that  ice  should  treat  man,  ivhether  in  our  own,  or  in  the 
person  of  others,  as  an  end  in  himself  and  not  merely  as  a  means. 
By  this  formula  Kant  can  test  all  moral  laws  regarding  person 
and  property,  so  as  to  see  whether  they  consist  with  the  proper 
respect  due  to  personality.  At  the  same  time  this  principle 
forces  utility  as  a  criterion  into  the  background,  though  it  does 
not  antagonize  it,  and  brings  forward  the  good  will  as  the  only 
.absolute  value  which  Ethics  can  admit.  This  unconditional 
imperative,  then,  is  equivalent  to  enjoining  virtue  for  its  own 
sake  as  it  makes  that  quality  to  consist  purely  in  formaV  obedi- 
ence to  the  law.  At  this  stage  of  the  problem  Kant  lays  no 
stress  upon  the  external  end  to  be  realized  in  morality.  He  does 
not  seem  to  feel  that  the  end  is  the  important  element  in  virtue, 
but  that  it  consists  only  in  the  attitude  of  the  mind  or  will  toward 
whatever  end  it  may  choose ;  that  is,  merely  in  the  will  to  live 
according  to  the  law  of  duty.  Hence  he  wholly  repudiates 
pleasure  as  a  rational  object  of  volition.  He  does  not  deny  that 
pleasure  is  a  good,  he  only  denies  that  it  is  a  moral  good.  It  is 
the  natural  and  necessary  ol)ject  of  all  volition,  while  a  moral 
object  must  represent  the  free  autonomy  of  the  will.  Hence 
though  pleasure  might  be  a  material  element  in  conduct  it  is 
not  the  object  which  constitutes  its  moral  Avorth.  This  must  be 
derived  from  conscientiousness,  or  as  Kant  expresses  it,  from 
formal  obedience  to  the  categorical  imperative.  Thus  neither 
instinct  nor  desire,  but  only  rational  volition  out  of  respect  for 
moral  law  can  constitute  virtue.  This  is  a  quality  Avhich  every 
one  whether  wise  or  ignorant  could  be  expected  to  exhibit,  and 
hence  Kant  could  hold  all  persons  up  to  the  same  degree  of 
responsil)ility.  With  the  utilitarian  or  hedonist  knowledge  is 
necessary  to  the  right  pursuit  of  plcasui'e,  because  this  end  is 
complicated  with  the  various  conditions  of  the  physical  world, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  75 

wliile  the  good  will  is  not  affected  by  these  circumstances  and 
requires  no  special  knowledge  of  nature  to  condition  it.  This 
position  of  Kant  gave  idealism  complete  control  of  the  ethical 
problem  by  making  it  to  consist  in  the  determination  of  the  will 
alone,  which  could  act  under  the  law  of  duty  without  regard  to 
the  amount  of  material  knowledge  possessed  by  the  subject. 

This  capacity  of  reason  to  act  according  to  a  law,  to  produce  a 
categorical  imperative,  or  sense  of  duty,  was  taken  as  proof  of  its 
capacity  to  obey  the  law,  and  this  was  its  freedom.  What  Kant 
made  clear  in  this  view,  was  the  ftict  that  the  consciousness  of 
duty  was  absurd  and  anomalous,  unless  we  could  assume  man's 
power  to  do  what  reason  thus  commanded.  If  man  cannot  do 
what  his  reason  (conscience)  tells  him  he  ought  to  do,  the  sense 
of  duty  contradicts  his  nature,  and  he  cannot  be  said  to  possess 
responsibility  at  all.  In  this  way  Kant  sought  to  establish  the 
fact  of  freedom.  But  the  mechanical  philosophy  of  the  day,  the 
Leibnitzian  conception  of  predominant  inclinations  affecting  the 
will,  and  Kant's  own  concessions  to  natural  philosophy  in  his 
conceptions  of  mental  phenomena,  led  him  to  assert  a  paradoxi- 
cal theory  in  regard  to  the  will,  which  maintained,  on  the  one 
side,  the  freedom,  and  on  the  other,  the  necessity  of  volition. 
Thus,  Kant  affirmed  that  phenomenally  the  will  was  determined, 
but  noumenally,  or  as  a  thing  in  itself,  it  was  free.  In  the  anti- 
nomy regarding  freedom,  Kant  found,  as  he  thought,  that  he  had 
to  choose  between  the  law  of  causation  and  freedom,  and  so  he 
solved  the  problem  by  the  distinction  between  things  in  them- 
selves and  phenomena,  holding  that  the  will,  in  so  far  as  it  was  a 
noumenon,  was  free,  and  not  subject  to  the  law  of  causality,  but 
that  in  so  far  as  it  was  a  phenomenon  it  was  not  free,  but  deter- 
mined. Stripped  of  Kantian  verbiage  and  technicalities  this 
view  can  be  made  intelligible  only  by  saying  that  volition  (em- 
pirical will)  as  an  event  in  time  is  determined  and  subject  to  the 
natural  law  of  causation,  but  that  the  will  (transcendental  will) 
as  a  subject  and  not  in  time,  is  free  and  undetermined.  Clumsy 
as  his  way  of  putting  the  matter  was,  nevertheless  it  had  the 
merit,  first  of  reinforcing  common  conviction  in  regard  to  the  fact 


76  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

of  freedom,  and  second  of  indicating  the  source  of  philosophic 
ilhision  regarding  it,  in  that  he  distinguished  between  the  causal- 
ity of  volitions  as  events  and  the  causality  of  the  will  as  a  sub- 
ject, the  latter  not  falling  in  the  series  of  phenomena  which  come 
under  the  law  of  causation. 

The  second  and  supplementary  aspect  of  his  doctrine  is  quite 
as  interesting,  as  an  attempt  to  correct  the  excessively  formal 
characteristic  of  the  first  part.  Kant  was  aware  of  the  rigorous 
and  stoical  demands  upon  the  individual  made  by  his  doctrine 
of  conscience,  and  though  it  was  not  so  offensive  as  the  severity 
of  Spinoza's  system  with  its  pantheism  and  denial  of  immortality, 
it  took  away  the  concessions  to  happiness  made  by  Leibnitz, 
admitted  even  by  Spinoza,  and  recognized  by  the  common  con- 
sciousness of  the  age,  and  perhaps,  of  all  ages,  as  too  precious  to 
be  sacrificed  to  the  logical  necessities  of  a  theory.  Hence  after 
apparently  repudiating  the  connection  of  happiness  with  morality 
and  certainly  denying  its  importance  as  a  measure  of  virtue,  in 
order  to  prove  that  the  formal  law  of  duty  was  the  essential 
element  of  moral  goodness,  Kant  turns  around  and  recognizes 
that  happiness  is  properly  connected  with  virtue.  But  he  denies 
the  identity  of  the  two  qualities  of  action,  and  so  maintains  that 
they  are  synthetically,  not  analytically,  connected,  to  use  his 
i:)hraseology.  The  highest  good  he  asserts  is  virtue,  but  it  is 
necessarily  united  with  happiness  in  the  ideal  or  perfect  state. 
But  the  imperfection  of  man  and  his  present  condition  is  the  cir- 
cumstance that  necessitates  his  dependence  upon  the  purely 
formal  nature  of  the  law  and  gives  rise  to  two  postulates  which 
the  theoretical  side  of  Kant's  philosophy  could  not  prove.  They 
are  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  existence  of  God. 

In  the  first  place  the  moral  law  requires  the  union  of  virtue 
and  happiness  which  can  be  realized  only  by  jierfect  holiness,  or 
perfect  conformity  of  will  to  the  law  of  duty.  But  man's  imper- 
fection is  such  that  the  conflict  between  the  demands  of  the  law 
and  his  own  love  of  happiness  makes  it  necessary  to  have  an 
indefinite  time  in  order  to  sanctify  his  w'ill.  lie  can  only  realize 
a  progressive  approximation  to  perfection  or  holiness,    and   to 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  77 

attain  this  he  must  have  immortality.  lu  the  second  place, 
since  the  moral  law  commands  nothing  but  conformity  to  itself, 
and  since  at  the  same  time  there  is  a  natural  and  necessary 
connection  between  the  ideas  of  virtue  and  happiness,  but  not 
between  their  phenomenal  reality,  Kant  asserts  that  the  exist- 
ence of  God  is  necessary  in  order  to  establish  their  real  connec- 
tion in  a  more  perfect  state  of  existence.  God  is  thus  necessary 
to  determine  the  harmony  between  morality  and  happiness.  In 
this  way  Kant  presented  his  celebrated  moral,  as  opposed  to  the 
speculative,  arguments  for  immortality  and  the  existence  of  God. 
They  were  assumptions  to  complete  the  n^iture  of  morality,  not 
the  grounds  or  proof  of  it.  Consequently  in  his  system  Ethics 
culminated  in  religion,  but  was  not  dependent  upon  it.  This,  of 
course,  was  intended  as  a  conciliation  of  conflicting  interests. 
Whatever  it  may  have  done  in  this  direction,  or  failed  to  do,  it 
certainly  preserved  the  integrity  of  the  moral  law  without  coming 
into  open  conflict  with  the  religious  consciousness,  and  fell  into 
line  with  the  spirit  of  the  reformation.  Kant's  good  will  was  the 
philosophic  conception  for  Luther's  justification  by  faith,  if  not  in 
the  relations  it  bore,  certainly  in  the  freedom  which  it  implied, 
and  in  the  recognition  of  personality  which  it  asserted  as  opposed 
to  the  doctrine  of  external  works. 

The  summary  of  Kant's  doctrine  will  contain  the  following 
contributions.  First,  the  thoroughly  idealistic  character  of  his 
Ethics  as  compared  Avith  the  half-Avay  theories  of  the  time. 
Second,  the  sceptical  attitude  of  his  philosophy  toward  meta- 
physics, which  forces  idealism  into  Ethics  if  morality  is  to  be 
saved  at  all.  Third,  the  doctrine  that  morality  is  based  upon 
freedom  and  the  categorical  imperative,  the  latter  as  a  fact 
being  a  proof  of  the  former.  Fourth,  the  constitution  of  virtue 
in  the  free  conformity  of  the  will  to  duty,  and  without  regard 
to  happiness.  Fifth,  the  postulation  of  immortality  as  a  condi- 
tion of  realizing  the  ideal  connection  between  virtue  and  happi- 
ness, since  it  requires  an  indefinite  time  for  its  achievement. 
Sixth,  the  postulation  of  God's  existence  as  a  condition  of  main- 
taining the  harmony  between  morality  and  happiness. 


78  ELE3IENTS  OF  ETHICS 

For  tlie  sake  of  imderstandiug  the  modern  problems  of  Ethics 
it  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  the  history  of  the  idealistic  move- 
ment any  farther.  It  attains  its  maturity  in  Kant,  as  a  purely 
subjective  doctrine.  Later  developments  only  eliminate  its 
difficulties  and  inconsistencies  -while  asserting  that  the  essential 
principle  of  virtue,  so  far  as  it  represents  character  .as  distinct 
from  external  conduct,  must  be  found  in  the  quality  of  will  and 
conscientiousness  Avhich  Kant's  categorical  imperative  embodied. 
Kant  developed  to  its  highest  pitch  the  imjDortance  of  the 
motive  to  morality,  and  did  so  to  the  extent  that  he  apparently 
ignored  the  value  of  the  material  end,  or  the  inevitableness  of 
the  tendency  to  use  pleasure  as  a  criterion  of  good  conduct. 
Hence,  the  purely  idealistic  movement,  which  was  independent 
of  genetic  theories  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  endsemonistic  doc- 
trines on  the  other,  may  be  said  to  have  culminated  in  Kant. 
We  may,  therefore,  turn  to  the  empirical  school  and  its  contri- 
butions. 

4th.  The  English  Movement. — This  whole  school  is  charac- 
terized by  the  historical  method,  though  it  is  divided  into  two 
opposing  tendencies,  the  empirical  and  the  intuitive.  It  is  not 
necessary,  however,  to  follow  each  tendency  throughout  its  de- 
velopment. It  is  sufficient  to  know  for  Avhat  they  stand.  The 
empirical  school  maintained  and  maintains  that  all  moral  con- 
ceptions are  derived  from  experience,  or  from  associations  of 
pleasure  and  pain  with  certain  forms  of  conduct,  and  it  is 
usually  identified  with  the  position  of  Utilitarianism,  that  hap- 
piness is  the  only  good.  The  intuitive  school  maintained  that 
the  principles  of  morality  are  implanted  in  the  constitution  of 
human  nature,  and  are  not  the  jiroduct  of  mere  experience. 
This  school  was  sometimes  identified  with  the  doctrine  of  Utili- 
tarianism, and  sometimes  it  Avas  not.  Its  main  tenet  was  the 
original  as  opposed  to  the  derived  nature  of  morality.  It  also 
subdivides  into  the  intellectual  and  the  ccsthetic  or  moral-sense 
school. 

1.  The  Empiricists. — This  school  comprises  the  earlier  and 
the  later  forms.   The  earlier  is  rcjiresented  by  Ilobbes  and  Locke, 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  79 

tlie  latter  by  Benthara,  IMill,  and  Spencer,  Avitli  men  of  minor 
note.  Hobbes  and  Locke,  however,  are  all  that  we  can  consider 
for  the  present,  in  giving  the  historical  development  of  the  ethi- 
cal problem.  Both  gave  a  very  considerable  impulse  to  the  em- 
pirical movement,  though  their  influence  was  not  the  same  in  its 
nature. 

The  chief  feature  of  Hobbes'  philosophy  was  its  political  doc- 
trine. But  it  contained  a  theory  of  right  which  was  not  only 
founded  upon  pleasure,  but  also  represented  conventionalism  in  a 
peculiarly  offensive  form.  His  system  started  in  a  materialistic 
psychology,  but  its  strength  did  not  lie  in  that  fact.  Its  impor- 
tance came  from  the  particularly  pessimistic  view  which  he  took 
of  human  nature,  and  the  means  necessary  to  secure  social  order. 
INIen  in  a  state  of  nature,  he  maintained,  were  in  a  state  of  war. 
Every  man  was  against  every  other  man  (Jwmo  homini  lupus), 
and  each  pursued  his  own  interests  without  any  restraints,  except 
such  as  the  fear  of  a  stronger  availed  to  produce.  Selfishness  is 
the  only  primitive  spring  to  conduct,  and  pleasure  its  only  object. 
There  is  no  such  a  thing  as  social  instinct  moving  men  to  seek  a 
general  good.  They  are  solely  under  the  influence  of  individual 
interest,  and  being  in  perpetual  conflict  could  succeed  only  in 
maintaining  a  state  of  anarchy.  In  this  condition,  might  and 
right  coincide,  and  no  man  has  any  rights  or  duties.  These  are 
purely  the  product  of  social  organization,  which  Hobbes  main- 
tains must  be  brought  about  either  by  compact  or  by  conquest. 
Either  alternative  involves  the  necessity  of  absolute  obedience  to 
a  sovereign  who  becomes  the  state  for  all  practical  purposes. 
"  The  sovereign  is  itself  bound  by  the  Law  of  Nature  to  seek 
the  good  of  the  people,  which  cannot  be  separated  from  its  own 
good,  but  it  is  responsible  to  God  alone  for  its  observance  of  these 
laAvs.  Its  commands  are  the  final  measure  of  right  and  wrong 
for  the  outward  conduct  of  its  subjects,  and  ought  to  be  absolutely 
obeyed  by  every  one  so  long  as  it  affords  him  protection,  and 
does  not  threaten  serious  harm  to  him  personally ;  since  to  dis- 
pute its  dictates  would  be  the  first  stop  towards  anarchy,  the  one 
paramount  peril  outweighing  all  particular  defects  in  legislation 


80  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  administration."*  Hobbes  carried  the  doctrine  of  absolute 
obedience  so  far  as  to  affirm  that,  if  the  sovereign  declared 
Mohammedanism  or  any  other  faith  to  be  the  state  religion,  it 
was  the  duty  of  the  subject  to  obey.  Though  he  alludes 
to  the  Law  of  Nature  as  binding  upon  the  sovereign,  he  means 
by  this  the  law  of  self-preservation,  and  not  any  social  tendency 
of  men,  or  love  of  their  fellows.  Consequently,  his  system  con- 
fers as  absolute  power  as  could  be  imagined,  over  the  character  of 
what  shall  be  called  right.  The  doctrine  coincided  at  the  time 
with  the  interest  of  the  monarchical  j)arty  in  England,  and  was 
supported  by  the  conservatives  against  the  liberal  tendencies  of 
the  Puritans,  Avhose  doctrine  of  individual  responsibility  to  con- 
science was  especially  offensive  to  Hobbes.  His  theory  greatly 
influenced  public  sentiment,  on  the  doctrine  of  the  "  divine  right 
of  kings,"  or  at  least  gave  it  the  support  of  philosoj)hic  authority, 
and  so  had  the  double  effect  of  reinforcing  the  reaction  toward 
external  authority  as  the  guide  of  conduct,  and  of  giving  moral- 
ity more  of  a  conventional  character  than  the  orthodox  mind  of 
the  age  was  willing  to  admit.  Though  the  school  which  Hobbes 
heads  did  not  accept  the  radically  despotic  doctrine  that  the 
sovereign  could  be  the  source  of  moral  law,  it  turned  the  general 
principle  of  his  system  to  account  in  explaining  the  influence  ex- 
erted by  jurisprudence  in  establishing  social  customs,  and  so  in 
giving  form  to  the  general  conscience.  The  boldness  and  revo- 
lutionary character  of  the  doctrine  was  the  agency  which  revived 
ethical  speculation,  as  can  be  seen  in  both  the  intellectual  and 
the  esthetic  schools,  which  endeavored  to  refute  both  the  con- 
ventional and  the  egoistic  features  of  his  theory.  Also  its  in- 
fluence can  be  traced  in  tlie  doctrines  of  Bain  and  Spencer,  that 
conscience  originates,  at  least  partly,  in  i^olitical  authority  and 
restraints.  The  essential  feature  of  the  theory,  however,  was  that 
morality  can  be  the  creation  of  will  in  which  Hobbes  restored  the 
theological  doctrine  without  the  religious  reverence  that  gave  it 
both  force  and  ideality.  It  became  a  political  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  arbitrary  i)ower,  precisely  as  Sophistic  doctrine  became 
*  Sidgwick,  IFitilonj  of  Elhirs,  p.  1G5. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  81 

in  the  hands  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants.  The  reaction  which  came 
in  the  intellectual  and  moral  sense  schools  measured  the  extent 
of  both  the  repugnance  and  the  dangers  of  Hobbes'  doctrine. 

Locke  did  not  exactly  follow  the  lines  of  Hobbes'  speculations. 
The  author  of  the  celebrated  treatise  on  Toleration  could  hardly 
have  consented  to  any  form  of  absolutism,  and  hence  his  sympa- 
thies with  individual  liberty  would  incline  him  to  take  another 
view  more  consistent  with  natural  rights.  But  he  nevertheless 
gave  the  empirical  movement  quite  as  strong,  if  not  a  stronger, 
impulse  than  Hobbes,  though  he  did  it  from  another  standpoint, 
and  without  involving  his  theory  in  the  meshes  of  practical  poli- 
tics. This  he  did  by  his  general  theory  of  knowledge  whose  fun- 
damental principle  was  experience  as  opposed  alike  to  authority 
and  to  intuition.  Locke  denied  the  existence  of  "  innate  ideas," 
both  speculative  and  practical.  All  theoretical  ideas  he  derived 
from  sensation  and  reflection,  meaning  by  these  external  and 
internal  perception :  all  practical  ideas,  or  moral  maxims  he 
derived  from  experiences  in  pleasure  and  pain.  What  Locke 
really  called  attention  to  was  the  fact  that  moral  principles  are 
abstract  and  complex  instead  of  being  simple,  and  hence  require 
to  be  reduced  to  their  concrete  elements,  which  he  found  to  be 
pleasure  and  pain.  Others  had  emphasized  the  influence  of 
these  phenomena  as  well  as'he,  but  they  did  not  mean  thereby 
to  antagonize  a  doctrine  of  natural  and  inborn  morality. 
Hence  the  peculiar  characteristic  of  Locke's  position  was  that 
he  used  the  fact  to  prove  the  purely  experiential  character  of 
moral  principles,  and  ever  since  his  time  the  hedonistic  theory 
has  been  identified  with  the  endeavor  to  develop  ethical  maxims 
from  the  pursuit  of  ends  which  in  themselves  did  not  contain 
the  peculiar  quality  which  is  generally  expressed  by  morality  or 
virtue. 

2.  The  Intellectualists. — This  school  comprises  Cud- 
worth,  Cumberland,  Price,  and  Clarke.  The  common  characteris- 
tic of  it  is  its  hostility  to  the  conventionalism  of  Hobbes  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  the  experientialism  of  Locke  on  the  other.  Hobbes 
had   founded   morality   upon   the    will    and    Locke  upon   the 


82  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

emotions.  The  intellectualists  rejected  these  sources  and  referred 
moral  principles  to  reason,  and  made  them  constitutional  to  it. 
They  were  influenced  by  the  traditional  doctrine  that  conscience 
was  mainly  intellectual  in  its  character,  and  so  attempted  to 
reconstruct  Ethics  upon  that  basis. 

Cudworth's  contribution  to  the  problem  was  his  Treatise  con- 
cerning Eternal  and  Immutable  Morality.  This  title  is  a  suf- 
ficient indication  of  the  position  which  he  took,  as  against  the 
theory  of  Hobbes.  He  denied  the  origin  of  morality,  or  moral 
distinctions,  in  will  of  any  kind,  whether  divine  or  human,  and 
asserted  that  it  was  a  part  of  the  eternal  nature  of  things.  This 
moral  law  was  an  object  of  reason  and  not  of  feeling.  But  what 
is  interesting  in  his  view  is  its  thoroughly  metaphysical  and 
objective  character.  It  is  very  far  removed  from  the  idealistic 
doctrine  in  that  it  founds  morality  in  the  nature  of  things  rather 
than  in  the  nature  of  mind,  and  thus  can  set  up  an  objective  set 
of  relations  as  cognita  of  reason  rather  than  either  products  of 
arbitrary  jiower  or  reflexes  of  sense  and  feeling. 

Cumberland  expounded  his  philosophy  in  a  work  entitled  De 
Legibus  Naturce,  which  was  designed  as  an  attack  on  Hobbes, 
and  in  which  he  asserted  that  the  laws  of  nature  were  represented 
by  "immutably  true  propositions,  regulative  of  voluntary 
actions  as  to  the  choice  of  good  and  the  avoidance  of  evil,  and 
which  carry  with  them  an  obligation  to  outward  acts  of  obedi- 
ence, even  apart  from  civil  laws  and  from  any  considerations  of 
comj^acts  constituting  governments."  Civil  law  can  be  nothing 
but  an  effective  means  of  enforcing  the  laws  of  nature.  All 
these  laws  of  nature  he  thought  could  be  comprehended  under 
one  general  principle — the  law  of  benevolence — the  obligation  to 
promote  the  happiness  of  all  rational  agents.  Thus  his  position 
is  a  double  reply  to  Hobbes.  The  assertion  of  a  law  of  nature  was 
ojiposcd  to  Holibes'  conventionalism  and  tlie  recognition  of  be- 
nevolence as  the  basis  of  this  law  was  opposed  to  the  egoistic 
individualism  of  Hobbes. 

Clarke  takes  the  same  general  view  that  the  sanctions  of  mo- 
rality are  independent  of  legislations  either  divine  or  human,  and 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  83 

in  regard  to  their  self-evidence  compares  them  to  mathematical 
truths  which  were  generally  admitted  to  be  intuitive.  Price  also 
presses  the  self-evidence  of  moral  truths  and  asserts  that  the 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  ought,  duty,  etc.,  are  simple  notions 
incapable  of  definition  or  analysis,  thereby  disputing  the  conse- 
quences of  Locke's  doctrine. 

3.  The  Esthetic  or  INIoeal  Sense  School. — This  school 
comprises  Hutcheson,  Shaftesbury,  and  Hume,  with  some  others 
of  less  important  note.  They  represent  a  tendency  to  combat 
equally  the  conventionalism  of  Hobbes,  the  empiricism  of  Locke, 
and  the  rationalism  of  the  iutellectualists.  They  agree  in  main- 
taining the  existence  of  a  moral  sense  whose  function  it  is  to  per- 
ceive what  is  right  and  wrong  per  se,  as  opposed  to  mere  obedi- 
ence to  law  from  the  motive  of  self-interest.  On  the  other  hand, 
its  object  was  not  a  relation  of  things  as  in  the  intellectual 
school,  but  was  a  relation  of  men ;  that  is,  universal  happiness. 
The  fundamental  principle  of  moral  sense  was  sympathy  or 
social  instinct.  Thus  there  was  a  double  opposition  to  Hobbes. 
First,  in  so  far  as  moral  sense  was  an  endowment  of  the  individual 
it  was  opposed  both  to  Locke's  empiricism  and  to  Hobbes'  con- 
ventionalism. Second,  in  so  far  as  it  represented  social  instinct  it 
opposed  Hobbes'  egoism.  Again,  in  so  far  as  it  was  a  sense  as 
opposed  to  reason  and  with  its  object  in  happiness  the  doctrine 
combatted  the  pure  rationalism  of  the  iutellectualists,  and 
represents  the  tendency  toward  the  hedonistic  and  utilitarian 
doctrine  of  later  times. 

Shaftesbury  published  his  views  in  a  work  entitled  An 
Inquiry  concerning  Virtue  and  Merit,  in  which  he  attacked  the 
egoistic  interpretations  of  the  good  by  asserting  the  naturalness  of 
the  social  affections.  He  uses  the  term  moral  sense  to  describe 
their  general  function  and  admits  an  element  of  judgment 
or  reason  in  it.  But  he  placed  more  emphasis  upon  the  felicific 
character  of  its  object  and  the  universality  of  its  existence  so  as 
to  show  the  social  nature  of  morality. 

Hutcheson  emphasizes  the  view  that  the  moral  sense  has  had 
110  growth  or  history,  but  is  a  natural  endowment  of  man.     It 


84  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

is  mainly  of  the  nature  of  the  affections  and  represents  the 
approval  of  right  and  the  disapproval  of  wrong  actions.  Sym- 
pathy or  disinterested  affection  is  the  mainspring  of  virtuous 
conduct,  and  reason  plays  only  a  subordinate  part  in  its 
functions.  He  wholly  denies  the  moral  character  of  self-love, 
though  admitting  its  harmony  with  benevolence.  This  prepared 
him  for  the  admissions  of  the  scholastic  distinction  between 
formal  and  material  goodness.  An  act  was  formally  good, 
he  held,  when  it  sprang  from  benevolent  affection,  and  "  mate- 
rially good  when  it  tends  to  the  interest  of  the  system,  whatever 
the  affections  of  the  agent."  This  is  an  anticipation  of  one 
feature  of  Kant  and  a  preparation  for  Hume's  doctrine. 

Hume  developed  the  moral-sense  theory  to  its  utmost  degree 
of  perfection,  and  the  elaborate  analysis  which  he  gave  the 
ethical  problem  makes  his  system  worthy  of  a  careful,  though 
brief,  discussion.  In  the  first  place,  he  began  with  a  completely 
sceptical  system  of  metaphysics,  discrediting  the  dogmatic  and 
theological  doctrine  in  regard  to  the  existence  of  mind  and 
matter.  But  when  he  came  to  Ethics  his  scepticism  seems  to 
play  no  special  part  in  his  theory.  There  was  no  reason  that 
it  should  do  so  because  he  opposed  the  idea  that  morality 
represented  anything  in  the  nature  of  phenomena  independent 
of  the  will.  He  founds  his  Ethics,  however,  upon  the  psycho- 
logical classification  of  phenomena  into  impressions  and  ideas. 
The  former  represent  the  objects  of  sense,  including  the  feelings 
of  pleasure  and  pain ;  the  latter  represent  objects  of  the  under- 
standing or  reason,  and  so  denote  relations  of  tilings.  His 
starting  point,  therefore,  is  the  denial  that  moral  distinctions  are 
produced  by  reason.  "  Reason,"  he  held,  "  is  the  discovery  of 
truth  or  falsehood,"  and  not  of  the  praiseworthy  or  blame- 
worthy. It  deals  with  matters  of  fact  and  relations  of  ideas,  and 
so  with  objects  and  relations  not  determined  by  consciousness. 
On  the  other  hand,  morality  is  wholly  an  affair  of  the  will  and 
the  affections.  Its  function  is  the  distribution  of  praise  and 
blame,  and  its  ()l)ject  pleasure  and  pain.  Thus  it  had  to  deal 
with   the  emotions.     Hence  he  wholly  denied  the  position  of 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  80 

Cudwortli  and  the  Cambridge  Platonists,  that  right  and  wrong 
represented  anything  in  the  nature  of  things  apart  from  con- 
sciousness and  the  wi^J.  Hume  emphasized  his  denial  of  the 
intellectualist  doctrine  by  showing  that  the  same  effects  pro- 
duced by  inanimate  and  irrational  beings  were  not  adjudged  as 
either  moral  or  immoral.  Actions  must  be  caused  by  a  will  to 
have  moral  quality.  But  since  this  quality  cannot  be  found  in 
the  nature  of  things,  the  objective  relations  of  phenomena,  it 
must  be  found  in  the  motive.  Here  is  idealism  pure  and  simple  ; 
only  Hume  refuses  to  attach  merit  to  the  "  sense  of  morality," 
or  duty  as  a  motive.  This  merit  must  come  from  some  natural 
affection  of  the  soul  other  than  reason  or  the  sense  of  duty. 
The  way  is  prepared  here  for  Kant's  good-will,  though  it  is  not 
qualified  in  the  same  way.  Hume  thus  refutes  the  intellectual- 
ists  while  maintaining  the  ultimately  natural  character  of  moral 
distinctions.  But  he  falls  into  line  with  the  hedonists  in  making 
pleasure  the  end  of  action,  and  partly  with  Hobbes  in  his 
doctrine  of  the  conventional  though  not  arbitrary  nature  of 
justice.  Having  maintained  that  virtue  and  justice  do  not 
represent  any  relation  in  things  apart  from  will  and  that  justice 
cannot  exist  until  a  social  order  has  been  established,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  shoAV  that  it  is  wholly  dependent  upon  the  contract  or 
compact  that  introduces  that  order.  Justice  is  thus  artificial 
and  also  the  obligation  which  it  originates.  The  convention, 
however,  on  which  justice  rests  is  not  arbitrary,  but  expresses 
the  natural  agreement  of  men,  formed  by  their  social  instincts, 
to  establish  society,  and  to  maintain  security  of  life  and  property. 
Sympathy  is  the  bond  which  holds  the  social  organism  together. 
But  in  spite  of  this  view  Hume  agreed  with  Hobbes  in  making 
"self-interest  the  original  motive  to  the  establishment  of  justice, 
but  sympathy  with  public  interest  is  the  source  of  the  moral 
approbation  which  attends  that  virtue."  In  the  latter  aspect  he 
therefore  falls  into  line  with  Hutcheson  and  Shaftesbury.  But 
in  so  far  as  he  made  virtue  and  justice  in  the  social  order  a  pro- 
duct of  convention  and  the  sense  of  duty  the  result  of  the  same, 
he  combined  the  doctrines  of  Hobbes  and  Locke,  and  laid  the 


86  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

foundation  of  modern  empiricism,  as  represented  in  Bain  and 
Spencer,  and  evolutionists  generally.  But  he  stands  midway 
between  them  and  Kant  in  the  fact  th^t  his  moral  sense  is  a 
natural  foundation  upon  which  experience  and  convention  had 
to  build.  On  the  one  hand,  Hume  anticipated  idealism  in 
shomng  that  morality  was  not  a  quality  of  external  events,  and 
that  it  was  constituted  solely  by  the  motive,  or  disposition  of 
will,  though  he  made  its  object  pleasure.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
outlined  empiricism  by  declaring  for  the  conventional  nature  of 
justice,  of  conscience,  and  all  rules  affecting  the  security  of  life 
and  property.  But  when  taken  in  all  its  phases  his  system  will 
be  found  to  reflect  the  principles  of  several  schools,  marking  the 
transition  to  more  modern  doctrines.  The  summary  of  his  views 
will  bring  out  this  character  of  his  system.  We  may  state  this 
as  follows : 

First,  Hume  denies  the  rationalism  of  Cudworth  and  the 
intellectualists.  Second,  he  limits  the  object  matter  of  morality 
to  the  feelings  or  emotions.  Third,  he  asserts  a  doctrine  of 
moral  sense  which  contradicts  both  Hobbes  and  Locke.  Fourth, 
since  morality  cannot  consist  in  a  law  or  relation  of  things,  ex- 
ternal events,  it  must  consist  wholly  in  motive.  Fifth,  the 
motive  which  determines  the  quality  of  virtue  is  something  other 
than  the  "  sense  of  its  morality,"  and  must  be  some  natural  affec- 
tion. Sixth,  the  conventional  nature  of  the  social  organism  gives 
an  artificial  though  not  an  arbitrary  nature  to  justice.  Seventh, 
though  personal  interest  originates  this  convention  sympathy  is 
the  influence  which  seals  it  and  determines  the  feeling  of  appro- 
bation. Eighth,  conscience,  or  the  "sense  of  morality,"  is  a 
product  of  social  convention  'and  represents  a  purely  cognitive, 
not  a  motive,  function  in  the  determination  of  morality.  Ninth, 
pleasure  or  utility  is  the  object  of  all  action  and  the  criterion  of 
its  goodness. 

4.  Conclusion. — It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  the  history 
of  English  ethical  problems  beyond  Hume,  farther  than  to  re- 
mark that  his  doctrine  may  be  the  starting  point  of  several 
opposing  systems.     On  the  one  hand,  the  emphasis  of  one  of  his 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  ETHICAL  PROBLEMS  87 

principles  terminates  in  Kant ;  the  development  of  another  pro- 
duces Beutham  and  Mill.  The  last  two  made  pleasure  the  sole 
criterion  of  morality,  Bentham,  however,  holding  that  pleasures 
differ  only  in  quantity  or  degree,  and  Mill  that  they  differ  in 
quality  or  kind  as  well  as  in  quantity.  Another  aspect  of 
Hume's  theory  anticipates  the  main  position  of  evolution, 
while  the  many  elements  taken  together  and  harmonized  might 
originate  a  complete  syncretistic  or  eclectic  theory  of  morality. 
He  touched  upon  all  the  main  problems  of  modern  ethics  and 
suggests  the  attitudes  which  may  be  taken  regarding  them. 
From  his  time  they  become  progressively  complex  as  the 
analysis  of  their  vaiious  elements  proceeds,  and  represent  the 
questions  which  the  moralist  of  the  present  has  to  meet.  What 
they  are  we  may  best  illustrate  by  a  careful  summary,  which 
shall  outline  for  us  the  many  problems  we  have  to  discuss  in  the 
present  work.  The  following,  therefore,  will  represent  the  ques- 
tions to  be  considered  in  the  modern  science  of  Ethics : 

First,  there  is  the  ultimate  or  highest  good,  or  the  question 
regarding  the  ultimate  end  of  conduct,  whether  it  is  pleasure  or 
pei'fection,  or  both,  or  some  other  more  defensible  object.  Sub- 
ordinate to  this  problem  is  the  one  regarding  what  men  do  seek, 
and  what  they  ourjht  to  seek,  if  obligation  be  possible.  Second, 
there  is  the  question  regarding  luhat  is  right  or  moral  after  the 
end  has  been  determined,*  since  the  right  has  to  do  with  the 
means  to  the  end.  The  question  ivhy  it  is  right  also  comes  in  as 
a  problem,  but  it  is  identical  with  the  first-mentioned  case. 
Third,  there  is  the  question  regarding  the  metaph3-sical  basis  of 
Ethics,  including  the  theological  problems  of  God's  existence, 
his  nature,  and  the  relation  of  his  will  to  the  moral  law. 
Fourth,  there  is  the  question  regarding  the  relation  of  moral  law 
to  external  authority,  whether  divine  or  human,  and  which  in- 
volves the  question  whether  it  is  conventional  or  natural.  Fifth, 
there  is  the  question  in  regard  both  to  the  nature  and  the  origin 
of  conscience ;  whether  it  is  simple  or  complex,  and  whether  it  is 
original,  and  implanted,  or  acquired  and  developed.  Sixth,  there 
is  farther  the  question  as  to  the  authority  of  conscience,  its  falli- 


88  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

bility  or  infallibility.  This  problem,  however,  is  a  receding  echo 
of  scholasticism.  Seventh,  there  is  the  problem  of  the  freedom 
of  the  will  and  responsibility,  involving  the  question  as  to  the 
causes  of  conduct,  man's  relation  to  environment  and  to  his  an- 
cestors, or  the  influences  in  time  and  space  which  may  be  sup- 
posed to  impose  limitations  upon  his  will.  Eighth,  there  are  the 
various  specific  theories  of  Ethics  combining  these  several  prob- 
lems in  different  ways.  Xinth,  there  is  the  question  regarding 
the  nature  of  virtue  or  moral  goodness,  whether  it  consists  in  a 
quality  of  will,  or  a  quality  of  conduct,  or  both.  Tenth,  there 
is  the  question  of  the  relation  of  motives  to  conduct,  (a)  whether 
they  are  causes  of  it  or  mere  concomitants,  and  (6)  whether  they 
are  elements  determining  its  ethical  character  or  not.  Eleventh, 
there  are  the  specific  j)roblems  of  practical  Ethics  concerning 
the  nature,  obligation,  and  limits  of  the  various  virtues,  such  as 
veracity,  justice,  chastity,  etc.  There  are  numerous  other  ques- 
tions which  might  be  stated,  but  they  are  either  less  important 
than  those  we  have  mentioned,  or  they  are  subordinate  aspects 
of  more  general  problems.  But  such  as  have  been  enumerated 
indicate  how  complex  the  ethical  question  has  become  in  the 
process  of  development,  and  how  careful  must  be  the  analysis  if 
we  expect  to  give  it  any  adequate  answer. 

References. — Sidgwick  :  History  of  Etliics ;  Erdmann  :  History  of  Phi- 
losophy ;  Ueberweg :  History  of  Philosophy ;  Kuno  Fischer :  Geschichte 
der  Neueren  Philosophic;  Wundt:  Ethik;  Ziegler:  Christliche  Ethik; 
Martineau:  Types  of  Ethical  Theory;  Jodl :  Geschichte  der  Ethik  ;  "Win- 
delband :  Geschichte  der  Philosophic ;  Falckenberg :  History  of  I'hi- 
losophy  (Translation  by  A.  C.  Armstrong);  Schwegler:  History  of  Philos- 
ophy (Translation  by  J.  H.  Stirling).  See  also  articles  in  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica  under  the  appropriate  names  and  subjects. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ELEMENTAEY   PRINCIPLES 

I.  INTRODUCTORY.— We  have  found  that  Ethics  as  a  science 
investigates  questions  concerning  right  and  wrong,  man's  moral 
nature,  and  the  ultimate  end  of  conduct,  and  that  it  is  especially 
interested  in  the  ground  and  validity  of  the  various  moral  rules 
imposed  by  society  and  conscience  upon  the  individual  to  reg- 
ulate his  behavior.  These  questions  can,  perhaps,  be  reduced  to 
three  or  four  different  forms.  The  first  is  whether  there  is  any 
duty,  virtue,  morality,  or  obligation  at  all.  The  second  is,  ivhy 
such  and  such  rules  are  made  obligatory,  conditionally  or 
unconditionally,  or  what  are  the  grounds  upon  which  moral 
obligation  rests.  The  third  is,  hoiu  we  come  to  know  what 
is  moral.  This  is  the  jDroblem  of  the  origin  and  development  of 
moral  consciousness.  The  fourth  concerns  the  application  of 
moral  rules  to  practical  life,  or  the  conditions  under  which  they 
may  be  held  to  be  valid.  It  is  the  second  and  the  third  ques- 
tions, however,  that  occupy  the  largest  portion  of  the  field 
of  theoretical  Ethics,  and  to  them  we  shall  have  to  give  most  of 
our  attention  in  the  first  part  of  this  treatise.  The  answer  to  the 
first  question  is  an  answer  to  scepticism  and  can  be  made  easy  or 
difficult  according  as  we  simplifj'  or  confuse  our  problems.  In 
one  sense  it  is  only  a  matter  regarding  the  meaning  of  terras  as 
to  whether  there  is  any  such  thing  as  morality ;  that  is,  it 
is  merely  a  question  of  fact  Avhich  any  normal  consciousness 
can  settle  for  itself  On  the  other  hand,  and  in  another  sense,  it 
is  a  question  involving  the  meaning,  contents,  and  theory  of 
morality.  For  that  reason  it  may  involve  the  whole  problem, 
and  can  be  adequately  answered  only  in  the  sequel  of  the 
discussion. 

89 


90  ELEJIEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

Again,  there  is  so  mucli  equivocation  and  confusion  in  regard 
to  the  nature  of  ethical  conceptions  and  the  theories  of  them,  that 
general  questions  can  be  intelligently  discussed  only  after  the 
fundamental  tei'ms  have  been  clearly  defined  and  the  various 
moral  phenomena  of  consciousness  analyzed.  In  fact,  nearly  all 
the  disputes  of  Ethics  turn  upon  a  misunderstanding  of  the 
terms  and  point  of  view  involved.  They  are  assumed  to  be  sim- 
ple and  uniform  in  their  import,  but  are  in  fact  extremely  com- 
plex and  variable  in  their  application.  For  that  reason  it 
is  exceedingly  important  to  clearly  define  the  various  applications 
of  fundamental  terms  and  indicate  their  relation  to  the  diflerent 
aspects  of  the  ethical  problem.  These  terms  are  virtue,  vice, 
good,  bad,  moral,  immoral,  right,  wrong,  duty,  obligation,  and 
*  allied  conceptions.  We  may  forestall  much  useless  controversy 
by  first  indicating  the  illusions  to  which  we  are  liable  in  using 
them  without  being  conscious  of  their  equivocal  import. 

n.  DEFISITION  OF  T^EJ/.S'.— The  difl'erent  schools  of  Ethics 
are  very  much  aflfected  by  the  conceptions  they  hold  of  the 
terras  lying  at  the  basis  of  moral  reflection.  Their  antagonisms 
also  are  influenced  by  the  diflerent  meanings  involved  and  might 
be  removed  by  the  precautions  which  analysis  and  definition 
may  establish.  Thus  one  school  makes  virtue,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  highest  good,  and  so  regards  it  as  an  ultimate  end  of  con- 
duct ;  another  school  does  not  see  how  virtue  can  be  an  end  at 
all,  and  conceives  it  as  describing  the  merit  of  certain  means  to 
an  end  which  it  may  call  pleasure,  perfection,  or  something  else. 
If  the  terms  have  more  than  one  meaning  there  is  no  necessary 
conflict  between  the  two  modes  of  thought ;  otherwise  they 
must  disagree.  It  is  the  same  with  other  important  conceptions, 
and  hence  their  various  denotations  must  be  carefully  examined. 

1st.  Virtue  and  Vice. — These  two  terms  are  usually  employed 
as  opposites,  or  contradictory  conceptions.  More  technically  they 
may  be  treated  as  contraries.  But  this  refinement  aside,  tliey  are 
always  opposed  to  each  other.  The  former,  however,  often  has 
a  meaning  which  is  not  reflected  in  the  latter.  This  is  due  to  the 
exigencies  of  special  theories,  as  will  appear  in  the  analysis. 


ELEMEXTAR  V  PPJXCIPLES  0 1 

The  etymological  import  of  the  term  virtue  (Latin :  virtui<)  is 
mauliiiess,  aud  iu  Romau  civilizatiou  this  was  largely  represeuted 
by  the  martial  type  of  thought  embodying  the  conceptions  of  a 
militant  stage  of  life.  But  in  the  course  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment the  term  was  used  as  the  equivalent  of  the  Greek  term 
apertj  {apco,  to  fit),  whose  original  import  seems  to  have  been 
fitness,  harmony,  adjustment,  and  so  apparently  describes  the 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  But  in  Greek  Ethics  this  concep- 
tion seems  not  to  have  been  current  and  the  term  denoted  excel- 
lence, without  distinction  between  natural  and  moral,  original 
and  acquired,  qualities  of  being.  Virtue  was  thus  excellence  of 
any  kind,  whether  of  blood,  of  talents,  or  of  character.  But 
Aristotle's  distinction  between  intellectual  and  moral  virtues  and 
his  limitation  of  ethics  to  the  consideration  of  the  latter  have 
availed  to  narrow  the  term's  significance  until  it  now  properly 
denotes  only  moral  qualities,  either  qualities  of  icill,  or  qualities  of 
conduct.  There  are  traces  of  the  old  conception  in  such  phrases 
as  "  the  virtues  of  medicine,"  "  the  virtues  of  crystals,"  etc.  But 
this  produces  no  confusion,  since  the  phrases  do  not  occur  in 
ethical  speculations.  The  ambiguity  of  the  term,  so  far  as  it 
affects  ethical  doctrine,  lies  in  its  power  to  denote  both  excellence 
of  being  or  will,  and  excellence  of  conduct.  The  former  meaning 
refers  to  quality  of  character,  of  nature,  of  personality,  and  may 
well  be  an  end  of  desire  or  of  action.  In  this  sense  the 
merit  which  it  denotes  may  be  an  absolute  quality,  appealing  to 
our  approval  or  admiration,  and  having  its  excellence  in  itself. 
"With  this  view  of  it  the  Stoics  and  later  writers  might  well  con- 
"sider  it  as  the  l^ghest  good.  But  the  second  meaning  which 
describes  excellence  of  conduct  is  vers*  diifereut.  It  here  denotes 
a  merit  which  is  purely  relative  to  the  end  at  which  the  conduct 
aims.  All  action  is  a  means  to  an  end,  and  cannot  very  well  be 
conceived  as  an  end  in  itself.  Whatever  quality  it  has,  there- 
fore, must  be  derived  from  the  end  or  consequence  to  which  it 
leads.  If  the  end  be  good,  the  act  may  be  good,  and  if  the  end 
be  bad,  the  act  will  be  bad.  Now,  as  all  the  specific  "  virtues  " 
like  courage,  temperance,  honesty,  etc.,  represent  actions,  there 


92  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

was  no  way  to  look  at  tliem  but  as  means  to  some  end,  and 
hence  they  were  virtues  because  they  were  causally  connected 
with  certain  desirable  ends  like  pleasure  or  perfection.  Their 
quality  was  relative  to  those  ends  and  dependent  upon  them. 
That  is  to  say,  in  this  meaning  of  the  terms,  virtue  and  virtuous 
denote  only  the  fitness  of  a  means  to  an  end  approved  on  other 
grounds  than  the  nature  of  the  means.  It  is  evident  that  in  this 
sense  they  could  not  denote  an  absolute  or  ultimate  end,  and 
hence  so  conceived  we  can  understand  the  reluctance  of  the 
human  mind  to  speak  or  think  of  the  particular  virtues,  such  as 
veracity,  honesty,  courage,  etc.,  as  ends  in  themselves  to  be  sought 
on  their  own  account  and  for  which  no  reason  could  be  assigned. 
It  could  not  do  so  as  long  as  it  asked  and  gave  the  reason  for 
their  merit  in  the  end  which  they  were  necessar}^  to  realize.  But 
when  virtue  expresses  excellence  of  will,  nature,  or  character  the 
case  is  different.  It  is  then  the  equivalent  of  perfection,  or  the 
intrinsic  quality  of  a  being  which  is  expressed  or  indicated  by 
particular  "  virtues,"  while  they  are  not  means  for  attaining  it. 
In  this  sense  it  is  an  object  to  be  aimed  at,  not  a  means  for  attain- 
ing some  other  object.  Hence  Ave  find  the  two  very  distinct 
meanings  for  the  term :  first,  a  quality  of  being  which  is  an  end, 
and  second,  a  quality  of  action  which  is  a  means.  One  has 
absolute  and  the  other  has  only  a  relative  value. 

These  two  conceptions  may  give  rise  to  two  different  theories 
of  morality.  If  we  use  the  term  to  denote  only  the  means  to  an 
end,  virtue  must  have  its  character  determined  solely  in  relation 
to  that  end.  It  is  reducible  and  capable  of  analysis  into  the 
object  which  it  serves,  and  will  have  no  value  but  that  of  the 
result  to  which  it  is  the  causal  or  necessary  means.  This  will 
explain  the  natural  tendency  of  the  mind  to  give  a  reason  for 
the  various  duties  of  honesty,  veracity,  justice,  humility,  etc., 
other  than  those  virtues  themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we 
take  the  term  to  mean  excellence  of  character,  the  quality  or 
nature  of  will  which  we  call  good  on  its  own  account,  or  perfec- 
tion of  personality,  there  is  no  reason  to  consider  it  as  a  means  to 
an  end.     Rather  it  may  l>e  regarded  as  an  end  having  its  own 


ELEMENTARY  PRIXCIPLES  93 

worth,  as  every  highest  good  or  ultimate  end,  whether  it  be 
pleasure  or  not,  must  have.  Hence  it  would  be  reasonable  to 
speak  and  think  of  pursuing  virtue  for  its  own  sake  when  so 
conceived. 

The  terra  vice  requires  no  special  discussion,  as  its  import  is 
parallel  with  that  of  virtue ;  only  it  is  to  be  noted  that  general 
usage  confines  its  application  more  frequently  to  the  nature  of 
actions,  rather  than  to  that  of  the  will  or  character.  Hence  it 
reflects  the  tendency  of  the  mind  to  use  the  two  terms  for  de- 
scribing the  fitness  aud  unfitness  of  certain  actions  in  an  ideal 
world. 

2d.  Good  and  Bad  or  Evil. — These  terms  also  have  both  an 
absolute  and  a  relative  import :  an  absolute  to  denote  inherent 
characteristics,  perfections,  or  imperfections,  and  a  relative  to 
denote  fitness  or  unfitness  for  achieving  an  end.  We  can  define 
both,  however,  by  confining  attention  to  one  of  them.  Good,  for 
instance,  will  qualify  objects,  animate  or  inanimate,  persons, 
actions,  and  ends  or  purposes,  and  it  does  not  always  have  the 
same  import  in  each  case.  Thus  it  may  qualify  objects,  animate 
or  inanimate,  below  man,  both  absolutely  and  relatively.  For 
instance,  we  may  say  "  a  good  picture  "  when  we  mean  only  that 
it  comes  up  to  a  certain  standard  of  excellence,  and  not  that  it  is 
useful  %x  any  material  purpose.  In  this  sense  we  mean  to  de- 
scribe certain  intrinsic  perfections  of  the  picture,  and  not  its 
mere  fitness  to  realize  an  end.  On  the  other  hand,  "  a  good 
watch,"  "  a  good  horse,"  "  a  good  government,  "  a  good 
machine,"  etc.,  however  they  may  imply  the  presence  of  certain 
excellences,  intend  definitely  to  express  only  their  value  as 
meaus  to  an  end.  We  should  not  call  them  "  good  "  if  they  did 
not  serve  this  useful  purpose,  although  their  intrinsic  qualities 
might  remain  the  same.  The  question,  then,  is  whether  moral 
goodness  expresses  anything  more  than  adaptation  to  a  given 
purpose.  If  it  does  not,  we  cannot  speak  of  this  purjoose  as 
"  good  "  at  all  without  degrading  it  to  the  rank  of  a  means  again 
to  some  ultimate  end  which  cannot  be  called  "good."  Mr. 
Spencer  maintains  that  the  term  has  only  a  relative  import. 


94  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

<*  In  wliich  cases,"  he  asks,  "  do  we  distinguish  as  good,  a  knife, 
a  gun,  a  house?  And  what  trait  leads  us  to  speak  of  a  bad 
umbrella  or  a  bad  pair  of  boots?  The  characters  here  predi- 
cated by  the  words  good  and  bad  are  not  intrinsic  charactei's ; 
for  apart  from  human  wants,  such  things  have  neither  merits 
nor  demerits.  "We  call  these  articles  good  or  bad  according  as 
they  are  well  or  ill  adapted  to  achieve  prescribed  ends  ;  ...  so 
it  is  when  we  pass  from  inanimate  objects  to  inanimate  actions." 
When  he  comes  to  ethical  actions  he  uses  the  same  language. 
"Observation,"  he  says,  "shows  that  we  apply  them  according 
as  the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends  are,  or  are  not,  efficient."  All 
this  is  very  true  as  far  as  Mr.  Spencer's  illustrations  go.  But 
he  is  either  unfortunate  in  the  choice  of  them,  or  he  has  failed 
to  make  his  analysis  exhaustive.  In  most  such  cases  "good" 
does  describe  fit  adjustment  to  ends,  and  only  that.  But  it 
often  also  refers  to  intrinsic  perfections  which  are  not  considered 
as  a  means  to  an  end.  They  may  be  determined  by  relation  to 
an  ideal,  but  this  is  not  making  them  causally  relative  to  an 
end.  They  are  qualities  of  excellence  which  we  may  admire 
without  reference  to  their  utility.  Such  expressions  as  "  a  good 
work  of  art,"  "  a  good  book,"  "  a  good  tree,"  "  a  good  pane  of 
glass,"  meaning  in  each  instance  only  that  the  object  comes  up 
to  a  certain  standard  of  perfection.  Of  coui-se,  some  terms  have 
both  the  absolute  and  the  relative  meaning,  but  the  presence  of 
the  relative  import  may  obscure  or  prevent  the  detection  of  the 
other  meaning.  A  few  instances,  however,  where  the  expression 
can  denote  only  certain  intrinsic  excellences,  admired  on  their 
own  account,  are  sufficient  to  set  aside  ]Mr.  Spencer's  limitations 
and  to  defend  the  assertion  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  abso- 
lute good,  worth  or  value,  not  spoken  of  or  conceived  as  a  mere 
means  to  an  end. 

As  applied  to  persons  this  use  of  the  term  is  quite  apparent. 
"  A  good  man "  is  an  expression  which  is  without  any  rational 
meaning  unless  it  describes  a  certain  excellence  of  character,  or 
quality  of  will  representing  at  least  a  certain  approximation  to 
an  ideal.     To  conceive  it  as  relative  to  some  end  in  this  case 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  95 

would  be  to  consider  man  merely  as  a  means,  and  not  as  an  end 
in  himself.  Where  a  condition  of  slavery  exists  \\q  might  use 
the  term  in  that  sense,  but  in  a  condition  where  every  man  is 
free  and  independent,  goodness  can  describe  his  moral  perfection 
or  the  presence  of  a  quality  which  may  be  viewed  as  an  end,  as 
a  worthy  object  on  its  own  account,  and  not  merely  as  a  means 
to  an  end.  It  is  true  that  man  may  often  be  a  means  to  some 
end :  he  may  always  be  so.  But  the  moment  that  he  becomes 
only  a  means,  or  that  his  excellences  are  conceived  as  only  a 
means  to  some  other  end,  he  can  have  no  moral  worth  which  is 
not  recognized  in  that  end.  Hence,  the  human  mind  when 
seeking  some  object  or  quality  of  intrinsic  value  in  man,  merit- 
ing moral  approbation,  has  chosen  to  call  it  "good"  simply 
because  of  that  quality  and  not  merely  because  it  might  be  use- 
ful as  a  means.  A  good  man,  meaning  a  moral  man,  is  one 
whose  nature  or  character  represents  something  ideal,  not  merely 
an  instrument  for  giving  pleasure  to  others  or  himself.  The 
existence  of  such  a  conception  is  a  complete  refutation  of  the 
limitations  placed  upon  the  term  by  Mr.  Spencer,  and  shows 
that  it  possesses  other  than  a  purely  relative  import.  The 
importance  of  this  fact  lies  in  the  consideration  that  it  validates 
the  usage  of  language  in  speaking  of  ultimate  ends  as  good, 
meaning  thereby  some  excellence  that  is  not  merely  a  means, 
and  shows  how  any  means  can  obtain  its  merit  by  virtue  of  that 
relation  to  the  end.  It  is  apparent  that  in  these  usages  the  term 
is  quite  identical  with  the  two  meanings  of  "  virtue,"  only  that 
"  virtue  "  in  its  relative  sense  is  the  name  of  a  thing  which  is  a 
means,  while  "  good  "  distinctly  expresses  or  implies  its  instru- 
mental character  when  purely  relative. 

In  its  applications  to  actions  "good"  has  only  a  relative  sig- 
nification. Actions  are  only  means  to  ends  and  cannot  be  called 
good  without  limiting  that  attribute  to  their  instrumental  rela- 
tion or  connection  with  their  result,  and  as  Ethics  has  to  do  very 
largely  with  conduct  it  is  only  natural  that  the  term  should 
take  on  the  essential  meaning  of  the  relative  phenomena  which 
it    describes.      Courage,    fortitude,  humility,  honesty    arc    all 


96  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

actions  which  must  be  estimated  or  valued  solely  on  the 
ground  of  their  relation  to  the  end  they  serve,  or  because  of  the 
character  they  express.  If  they  did  not  represent  these  relations 
they  Avould  not  obtain  the  right  to  be  called  good  actions. 
From  these  and  like  illustrations  we  can  only  conclude  that 
where  actions  are  described  as  good  or  bad,  we  can  view  the 
terms  only  in  their  relative  signification,  to  denote  merely 
adjustment  to  prescribed  ends.  Hence  they  describe  no  merit 
or  obligation  which  is  not  derived  from  the  end  which  they  may 
realize.  If  this  end  cannot  be  shown  to  be  ideal  or  moral,  these 
actions  cannot  be  good.  In  Ethics,  therefore,  good  and  bad 
cannot  describe  any  absolute  quality  in  actions.  An  absolute 
value  must  be  found  in  some  object  or  purpose  whose  pursuit 
sanctifies  the  action  necessary  to  attain  it. 

In  its  application  to  ends,  the  term  good  will  have  an  absolute 
or  a  relative  import  according  as  the  end  is  ultimate  or  subordi- 
nate. An  ultimate  end  is  one  which  represents  the  supreme 
object  of  desire  or  volition,  to  which  everything  else  is  subordi- 
nate or  contributory.  Thus  I  may  make  happiness  my  supreme 
purpose  in  life,  and  in  that  case  I  should  subordinate  fame, 
wealth,  knowledge,  and  all  other  accomplishments  to  it.  Or  if  I 
choose  wealth,  I  subordinate  my  manner  of  business  and  dealings 
with  men  to  that  one  end.  On  the  other  hand,  a  subordinate 
end  is  one  which  is  a  means  to  a  remoter  end.  Thus  the  imme- 
diate end  of  my  action  may  be  to  make  knives.  But  this  end 
again  may  be  a  means  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth  and  this  again 
to  some  other  end.  Thus  some  purposes  may  be  both  means  and 
ends,  and  others  only  ends  but  not  means.  An  end  which  is  not 
a  means  is  always  ultimate  or  supreme.  Now  in  application  to 
this  the  term  good  can  only  have  an  absolute  meaning.  It  can 
describe  the  ultimate  end  or  ends  of  life  only  as  objects  having 
intrinsic  worth,  and  not  as  means  to  any  remoter  end.  This 
must  be  true  or  the  term  cannot-  apply  to  them.  Thus  if  the 
Utilitarian  calls  pleasure  or  happiness  the  highest  good,  he  nuist 
either  admit  the  absolute  moaning  of  tlic  term  or  abandon  call- 
ino;  the  ultimate  end  of  life  a  good  at  all.     We  cannot  define 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  97 

the  term  as  purely  relative  and  then  apply  it  to  an  absolute  end. 
Hence  when  we  do  apply  it  to  the  ultimate  object  of  life  we 
intend  to  express  an  intrinsic  quality  by  it,  a  certain  kind  of 
excellence  or  perfection,  and  not  mere  causal  capacity. 

The  importance  of  considering  the  two  meanings  of  the  term 
is  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  the  term  virtue,  with  which  ti  is 
often  identical.  There  is  a  slight  difference  between  them  in 
most  applications,  but  it  is  not  essential  to  ethical  discussions. 
The  two  uses  have  their  value,  however,  in  the  fact  that  they  en- 
able us  to  consider  the  controversy  about  moral  obligations  at 
its  very  basis.  One  of  the  problems  of  theoretical  interest  to 
Ethics  is  the  question  w^hether  moral  obligation  is  ever  uncon- 
ditional ;  whether  duty  is  not  merely  relative  to  an  end  which 
-w'e  may  choose  or  not,  as  we  please.  The  sceptic  tells  us  that 
the  various  duties  and  virtues,  like  temperance,  chastity,  filial 
obedience,  etc.,  are  binding  only  so  long  as  we  desire  the  end  to 
which  they  are  the  means,  and  that  so  long  as  we  reject  that 
ideal  there  is  no  necessity  or  constraint  to  exercise  them.  This 
is  to  say  that  moral  obligation  is  conditioned  upon  something 
which  is  not  moral  or  obligatory  at  all.  As  long  as  "  good  " 
expresses  a  merely  relative  meaning,  or  fitness  to  achieve  an  end, 
causal  or  instrumental  agency,  this  might  he  true.  But  if  the 
term  is  also  employed  to  denote  what  the  mind  denotes  by  an 
absolute  and  ultimate  value,  irreducible  to  anything  more 
supreme,  there  is  reason  to  consider  moral  goodness  as  expressing 
unconditional  obligations  of  some  kind,  and  we  are  not  at  liberty 
to  discard  it.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  sense  of  an  unconditionally  im- 
perative end  that  has  tempted  the  human  mind  to  speak  and 
think  of  the  specific  virtues  as  absolutely  binding,  and  thus  by 
abstraction  to  lose  sight  of  the  one  fact  that  constituted  their 
moral  character. 

3d.  Right  and  Wrong — Right  (Latin  ?-ed«/.§,  straight ;  Greek 
equivalent,  opOos)  denotes  literally  directness  or  straightness, 
and  wrong  (Anglo-Saxon  wringen,  to  twist)  denotes  obliquity  or 
crookedness.  In  Etliics,  however,  there  is  only  metaphor  to  re- 
tain these  etymological  meanings,  and  hence  they  describe  cer- 


98  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

tain  qualities  of  action.  They  do  not  always  coincide  with  the 
terms  good  and  bad,  or  virtue  and  vice,  while  they  have  one  as- 
sociated implication  not  found  in  those  at  all.  This  Avill  be 
shown  in  the  analysis  of  them.     The  first  will  suffice  for  this. 

The  term  "  right "  has  several  distinct  meanings  which  may 
be  reduced  to  its  substantive  and  its  attributive  import.  They  do 
not  all  of  them  express  moral  quality  and  it  is  on  this  account 
that  the  term  is  liable  to  illusion.  Each  may  be  considered  in 
its  order. 

1.  "  Right "  (Latin  Jus)  as  a  substantive,  "  a  right "  or 
"  rights,"  denotes  a  claim  of  one  j^erson  against  the  infringement 
of  others,  or  a  possession  which  can  be  defended  against  aggres- 
sion. It  is  illustrated  in  such  phrases  as  "  the  right  to  life," 
"  the  right  to  vote,"  "  human  rights,"  etc.,  and  essentially  means 
that  force  may  be  legitimately  used  in  the  defence  of  it,  though 
there  may  not  always  be  an  obligation  to  do  so.  In  this  usage 
it  does  not  necessarily  imply  any  kind  of  morality.  It  is  prac- 
tically identical  with  liberty  of  action,  or  a  privilege  which  it  is 
proper  to  exercise,  and  which  confers  immunity  upon  the  sub- 
ject from  all  penalties  for  its  exercise.  It  implies  a  duty  on  the 
part  of  others  to  respect  it  and  not  to  interfere  with  i:,  but  it 
does  not  express  any  absolute  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  sub- 
ject to  act  according  to  his  liberty.  Consequently  it  has  only  a 
peculiarly  relative  import  in  that  it  implies  a  duty  on  the  part 
of  other  rational  beings  to  restrict  their  ow'n  liberty  of  action 
according  to  this  right,  but  implies  no  duties  on  the  part  of  the 
subject,  unless  he  too  be  rational.  Thus  animals  are  said  to  have 
"  rights  "  but  no  duties ;  but  they  have  "  rights  "  only  in  relation 
to  man,  who  has  duties  toward  them.  But  between  men  the 
duties  are  reciprocal  by  virtue  of  the  possession  of  the  same 
rights,  wdiile  between  animals  there  are  neither  "  rights  "  nor 
duties.  It  is  the  possession  of  a  rational  nature  that  determines 
the  existence  of  duties,  and  it  is  a  relation  to  rational  beings 
that  determines  the  existence  of  "  rights."  Wluit  that  relation 
is  it  is  not  necessary  to  consider  at  present.  But  it  is  important 
to  know  that  it  is  only  a  relation  to  rational  beings  and  not 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  99 

merely  the  possession  of  a  rational  nature  that  determines  the 
existence  of  rights,  as  the  practice  of  civilization  re2')reseuts  the 
matter.  This  will  explain  why  the  terra  in  this  sense  does  not 
connote  morality,  but  only  the  unreasonableness  of  interference 
with  a  right  by  those  who  are  rational,  or  claim  to  be. 

2.  "Right"  (Latin  rectus),  as  an  attributive  qualifying 
objects,  denotes  correctness  of  choice  or  judgment  between  alter- 
natives, and  so  is  distinguished  from  wrong  as  true  is  from  false. 
It  is  illustrated  in  such  jjhrases  as  "the  right  person,"  "the 
right  path,"  "  right  judgment,"  "  right  opinion,"  etc.  In  this 
usage  the  term  has  no  moral  implications  whatever  and  does  not 
express  a  moral  quality  in  the  object  described.  It  merely  indi- 
cates that  as  between  two  or  more  alternatives,  conceived  as 
related  to  a  certain  end,  the  choice  has  been  a  correct  one.  If  I 
am  hesitating  about  the  road  I  shall  take  among  several  before 
me  to  a  certain  point  of  destination,  I  may  be  told  that  a  certain 
one  is  "the  right  road,"  by  which  is  meant,  not  that  there  is 
any  moral  obligation  to  take  that  course,  but  that  this  is  the 
proper  one  to  take  me  whither  I  wish  to  go,  or  with  the  least 
pains  and  inconvenience.  If  the  road  is  the  only  one  to  my 
destination  and  I  will  to  go  to  it,  I  am  "  obliged  "  to  choose  this 
road.  But  the  obligation  is  not  moral  unless  the  journey  itself 
is  morally  imperative.  The  obligation  is  only  a  constraint 
or  necessity  to  adopt  this  means,  if  I  insist  upon  pursuing  the 
end.  Hence  "  right "  in  this  case  denotes  nothing  more  than 
correctness,  or  the  proper  causal  connection  between  the  alterna- 
tive or  means  chosen  and  the  end  desired.  It  simply  denotes 
intellectually  correct  determinations,  not  moral  quality. 

3.  "  Right"  (Latin rectus,  honestus,  etc.),  as  attributive  qual- 
ifying actions,  denotes  moral  quality,  and  so  indicates  their  im- 
perativeness or  praiseworthiness.  There  are  instances  here  also 
where  the  term  signifies  merely  intellectual  correctness  of  judg- 
ment, but  it  is  usually  in  the  phrase  "  the  right  "  as  contrasted 
with  "  a  right."  This  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  a  very 
subtle  illusion  to  which  the  human  mind  is  exposed  in  using  such 
expressions.     But  phrases  like  "right  conduct,"  "right  action," 


100  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  statements  like  "  that  is  right,"  "  temperance  is  right,"  etc., 
denote  moral  quality  and  hence  imply  an  obligation  to  reaUze 
them.  But  the  term  retains  its  references  to  causal  connection 
between  the  means  and  the  end,  while  it  never  expresses  the 
conception  of  virtue  taken  in  the  sense  of  excellence.  Even 
when  the  term  virtue  or  virtuous  refers  to  actions  it  never 
indicates  causal  capacity  or  relation,  but  only  moral  quality  by 
virtue  of  that  connection  with  an  end  conceived  as  moral.  But 
the  term  right  expresses  both  moral  quality  and  causal  connec- 
tion when  describing  the  means  to  an  end. 

4.  "Right"  (Latin  equitas,  honestum,jmtitia,  etc.),  as  subdan- 
tive  again,  denoting  ends  or  an  object  of  moral  volition,  signifies 
that  which  carries  the  highest  obligation  with  it.  It  is  purely  an 
abstract  conception  to  describe  the  quahty,  either  of  an  action  or 
an  end  that  gives  it  morality  and  imperativeness.  In  this  mean- 
ing of  the  term  the  conception  of  viitue  as  excellence  is  not 
found.  There  is  only  the  idea  of  moral  necessity  or  obligation, 
whether  there  be  excellence,  utility,  or  other  merit  in  it.  It 
denotes  in  this  use  pure  morality,  or  the  duty  that  rests  upon 
all  wills,  absolutely  considered  and  irrespective  of  any  other  ob- 
ject than  itself  Whether  there  be  any  such  thing  or  not,  it  is 
not  our  purpose  to  settle  at  present.  It  is  important  only  to 
show  current  usage,  and  to  notice  the  tendency  of  the  human 
mind  to  conceive  something  else  than  a  purely  relative  good  or 
right,  though  it  becomes  entangled  in  difficulties,  when  called  to 
define  its  meaning,  by  the  simultaneous  power  of  the  same  terms, 
to  denote  only  relative  qualities. 

5.  It  is  proper  to  call  attention  to  a  peculiar  use  of  the  term 
"  right,"  which  shows  its  extreme  flexibility.  It  sometimes  de- 
notes merely  moral  indifference,  or  not  wrong.  This  a2)pears  in 
such  expressions  as :  "  It  is  right  to  take  a  walk,  or  to  play  ball, 
if  I  desire  to  do  so,"  etc.  No  moral  obligation  is  expressed  by 
this  manner  of  statement,  but  only  that  the  act  is  not  wrong  pro- 
vided the  liberties  of  others  are  not  infringed.  It  is,  therefore, 
more  or  less  synonymous  with  liberty  of  action,  and  seems  to  be 
an  attributive  use  of  the  term  to  express  what  is  meant  by  "  a 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  1 0 1 

right,"  or  "  rights."  No  special  importance  attaches  to  this  sig- 
nification of  the  word  farther,  than  to  denote  the  equivocation 
to  which  it  might  give  rise  both  consciously  and  unconsciously. 

The  term  "  wrong  "  has  simply  the  opposite  import  of  the  term 
"  right,"  except  a  general  meaning  opposed  to  that  of  "  a  right " 
or  "  rights  "  is  not  common. 

4th.  Moral  or  Morality. — The  primitive  and  etymological 
import  of  the  term  (Latin  mos)  was  custom,  usage,  <ir  the  rules 
which  society  imposed  upon  its  members.  The  force  of  public 
opinion  and  of  the  law,  with  the  constraints  which  they  estab- 
lished, gave  rise  to  the  notion  of  authority  as  characterizing  the 
"  moral."  Hence  the  term  described  a  life  according  to  accepted 
usage,  or  common  as  opposed  to  eccentric  and  independent  con- 
duct. But  as  civilization  progressed,  the  term  took  up  the  funda- 
mental conceptions,  which  the  prevalent  theories  of  Ethics  created, 
regarding  the  nature  of  what  was  called  morality.  The  implica- 
tion of  external  authority  was  transformed  into  one  of  internal 
authority,  and  then  into  the  conceptions  of  utilitarian  and  other 
doctrines.  Very  early  these  conceptions  now  expressed  by  it 
were  embodied  in  equivalents,  like  righteousness,  uprightness, 
holiness,  etc.  (Latin  honestwri,  rectum,  Greek  to  KaXov, 
diKaii],  and  later  opdia),  and  when  the  term  came  to  be 
adopted  for  the  general  class  of  ethical  phenom^ia,  it  denoted 
a  certain  quality  about  actions  which  made  them  praiseworthy 
and  imperative,  independently  of  mere  conformity  to  usage  or 
authority  out  of  the  fear  of  consequences.  Controversies  also 
between  the  physical  and  the  "  moral "  sciences  availed  to  im- 
press their  influence  upon  the  meaning  of  the  term,  and  hence 
taking  all  of  them  into  account,  we  should  be  able  to  enumerate 
a  number  of  significations.  But  they  can  be  reduced  to  two 
general  forms,  the  generic  and  the  specific  meanings  of  the  term. 

1.  The  generic  import  of  the  term  moral  applies  to  all 
voluntary  actions,  whether  good  or  bad,  and  which  are  the  sub- 
ject of  ethical  consideration.  Such  actions  are  called  "  moral " 
in  contradistinction  to  physical  and  involuntary  actions, 
which  are  not  subject  to  either  praise  or  blame,  and  so  are 


102  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

properly  non-moral  in  their  nature.  The  flistinotinn— bAm--4«- 
b^tween  personal  or  free  and  impersonal  or  necessitated  acts. 
There  is  no  special  importance  attaching  to  this  nieaning,  but  it 
is  well  to  keejr-iton  mind  as  necessary.. ta-tfflderstand  certain  dis- 
tinctions which  have  beea^-e^bodied  in  ethical  doctrine.  It  is 
within  the  limits  of  the  second  meauing-that  the  term  obtains  its 
more  important  qualifications.  ~~ 

2.  The  specific  import  of  the  term  is  that  of  rightness  as 
opposed  to  wrong  and  hence  is  contrasted  with  the  immoral 
rather  than  the  unmoral  or  non-moral,  though  it  is,  of  course,  dis- 
tinguished from  these  at  the  same  time.  Moral  is  here  not  only 
personal  but  is  also  virtuous  and  imperative  actions,  and  so  de- 
scribes that  quality  of  conduct  by  which  it  has  acquired  the 
character  of  righteousness.  "Within  this  general  meaning  it  has 
also  obtained  different  meanings  according  as  action  is  viewed 
externally  or  objectively  and  internally  or  subjectively.  Some- 
times it  denotes  any  personal  act  affecting  the  order  of  the 
world  for  good,  no  matter  what  the  motive,  and  sometimes  it 
describes  only  the  volitional  act  independently  of  the  conse- 
quences, and  so  makes  righteousness  merely  a  quality  of  will. 
But  these  meanings  will  come  up  when  discussing  the  questions 
of  moral  actions  more  directly,  while  it  is  sufficient  at  present  to 
know  that  there  is  an  equivocal  meaning  in  the  term  growing 
out  of  this  distinction  between  motive  and  consequence.  As 
a  general  result,  then,  we  obtain  two  important  uses  of  the  term, 
one  contrasting  personal  or  voluntary  and  physical  actions,  and 
the  other  two  distinct  kinds  of  personal  or  voluntary  actions. 
The  first  pair  represents  the  contrast  between  conscious  and  un- 
conscious, or  free  and  necessitated  actions ;  the  second  pair 
represents  the  antithesis  between  good  and  evil  actions,  both  of 
which  are  free  or  personal  and  conscious.  This  gives  us  three 
forms  of  actions  to  be  considered — the  moral,  the  non-moral  or  in- 
different, and  the  immoral.  Confusion  may  occur  between  the 
last  two  classes  when  we  assume  that  all  actions  must  be  either 
good  or  bad  ;  that  is,  we  sometimes  illegitimately  identify  "cot 
moral  "  with  immoral.    This  probably  gives  rise  to  no  difficulties 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  103 

in  speculative  and  theoretical  Ethics  when  we  are  on  the  alert 
for  such  illusions,  but  in  practical  life  it  often  avails  to  carry 
unfair  insinuations  with  it  when  we  speak  of  an  action  as  "  not 
moral  '  and  mean  by  it  that  it  is  iuimoral.  Common  life  often 
proceeds  upon  the  loose  assumption  that  the  disjunction  is  com- 
plete between  the  moral  and  the  immoral,  and  distributes  praise 
accordingly,  and  thus  does  not  make  allowance  for  the  large  field 
of  actions  that  are  indifferent  and  that  constitute  the  province  of 
rights  and  of  moral  liberty. 

5th.  Duty  and  Obligation. — Duty  (Latin  debere,  to  owe) 
and  obligation  (Latin  obligare,  to  bind),  though  etymologically 
distinct,  have  logically  the  same  import.  Both  originally  ex- 
pressed that  relation  between  two  persons  which  is  indicated  by 
the  indebtedness  of  one  to  the  other,  a  condition  in  which  there 
is  a  constraint  upon  one  to  return  a  ser\dce  to  the  other.  They 
still  express  this  thought  with  the  conception  that  the  service  is 
not  a  mere  debt  or  obligation,  assumable  or  dissolvable  at  will 
by  contract,  but  a  fixed  due  unconditionally  binding  upon  a 
rational  subject  toward  all  others.  They  describe  what  ought  to 
be  done  as  contrasted  with  that  which  we  are  at  liberty  to  do  or 
not  do.  The  ideas  expressed  by  them  are  very  difficult  to  de- 
fine in  other  terms  than  themselves.  They  are  rather  unique  in 
their  nature,  and  we  better  understand  the  feelings  and  condi- 
tions they  indicate  than  we  can  choose  any  brief  phrase  to 
denominate  their  meaning.  Besides,  like  most  other  terms  in 
Ethics,  they  have  absorbed  the  variety  of  conceptions  that  have 
characterized  difierent  stages  of  intellectual  and  moral  develop- 
ment, while  they  have  lost  none  of  the  associations  belonging  to 
an  earlier  stage.  Hence  they  have  become  ambiguous.  Con- 
straint, a  feeling  of  necessity  or  compulsion,  a  limitation  to  one 
course  of  conduct  where  we  desire  liberty,  are  the  conceptions 
that  describe  the  original  and  perhaps  the  prevalent  notion  of 
the  terms.  But  the  development  of  the  doctrine  that  morality 
does  not  consist  merely  in  obedience  to  authority  out  of  fear,  but 
in  reverence  for  law  and  personality,  has  carried  with  it  the 
notion  that  our  duty  and  obligation  consists  in  reverence  and  re- 


104  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

spect  for  an  ideal  which  is  very  far  removed  from  the  notion  or 
constraint  or   compulsion.     The   consequence   is   that   the   two 
terms  give  considerable  difficulty  in  the  construction  of  an  ethi- 
cal theory.     One  of  their  meanings  opposes  them  to  inclination, 
desire,  or  interest,  and  the  other  identifies  them  with  interest,  or 
at  least  with  the  highest  conceivable  interest.     This  variation 
was  brought  about  by  the  process  alluded  to  in  which  the  terms 
retained  along  with  their  older  associations  the  accretions  of 
later  stages  of  moral  development.     In  the  first  place,  the  con- 
straint of  authority  and  the  subordination  of  all  other  claims 
and  desires  to  the  one  course  of  conduct  enjoined  by  what  was 
called  a  man's  duty  very  easily  carried  with  it,  especially  in 
individualistic  ages,  the  conception  that  all  desires  and  inclina- 
tions must  be  suppressed  in  the   presence  of  this   law.     This 
created  the  idea  that  duty  necessarily  involves  a  struggle  or  con- 
flict with  interest  and  natural  desire,  and  so  tenacious  has  been 
this  impression  of  its  meaning  that  most  persons  still  think  of  it 
as  ahvays  requiring  a  sacrifice  of  natural  impulses  to  do  their 
duty,  and  many  often  think  and  act  with  the  fear  that  they  are 
not  doing  what  is  right  unless  they  are  resisting  the  temptations 
of  some  pleasure  or  desire.     But  as  the  sense  of  duty  in  this  con- 
ception represented  the  highest  motive  to  action,  the  intellectual 
change  from  the  sentiment  of  authority  and  fear  to  that  of  rev- 
erence or  respect  as  the  proper  attitude  of  mind  and  will  in 
moral  action,  while  the  object  of  it  remained  the  same  as  before, 
carried  with  it  the  conception  that  one's  duty  must  consist  with 
reverence  and  a  positive  love  for  the  ideal ;  so  that  the  term 
added  this  idea  to  that  of  conflict  with  lower  impulses,  -yhUe  it 
changed  the  kind  or  attitude  of  the  subject's  interest,  and  there 
renuiins  still  the  difficulties  of  conceiving  the  term  as  implying 
a  conflict  with  desire,  on  the  one  hand,  and  as  representing  the 
highest  desire,  on  the  other. 

Theoretical  Ethics  is  very  much  influenced  by  this  equivo- 
cation, and  even  the  general  moral  consciousness  is  confused  by  it 
when  called  to  assign  the  higlicst  motives  to  conduct.  But  the 
consequences  of  this  ambiguity  cannot  be  dwelt  upon  at  present. 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  105 

It  is  enough  to  know  it  exists  and  is  likely  to  produce  all  the 
perverse  antagonisms  which  duplicity  of  meaning  is  calculated 
to  create.  Later,  in  the  discussion  of  the  nature  of  morality,  we 
may  return  to  it,  and  be  content  at  present  with  the  warning 
against  illusion,  which  the  consciousness  of  equivocal  conceptions 
can  provide, 

III  PSYCHOLOGICAL  FIELD  OF  310 RAL  CONSCIOUS- 
NESS.— Man's  moral  nature  has  often  been  conceived  as 
a  simple  one  and  very  little  complicated  with  the  intellectual. 
IMany,  indeed,  have  gone  so  far  as  to  assert  that  the  only  differ- 
ence between  man  and  the  animals,  so  far  as  intelligence  is 
concerned,  is  one  of  degree,  but  that  man's  moral  nature  estab- 
lished a  difference  of  kind.  This  conception  of  the  matter 
makes  moral  cjq)acity  unique  and  independent  in  its  character 
of  the  general  faculties  of  intelligence,  and  has  been  embodied 
in  the  doctrine  of  conscience.  But  it  is  a  mistake  thus  to  isolate 
moral  phenomena.  They  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  general 
functions  of  the  mind.  Not  that  they  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  other  mental  events,  but  that  the  distinction  is  rather  one 
of  the  objects  than  of  the  processes  concerned.  IMoral  phenomena 
will  give  more  prominence  to  certain  functions  than  the  purely 
intellectual  activities  in  the  objective  sciences  of  nature,  but 
they  will  not  exclude  them  altogether.  Consciousness,  judgment, 
feeling,  are  quite  as  much  concerned  with  morality  as  they  are 
with  science  and  art ;  only  the  objects  of  it  differ  and  perhaps 
the  kind  of  feeling.  But  they  cannot  be  eliminated  from  it 
altogether.  They  pervade  all  the  operations  of  our  moral  nature 
and  give  it  completeness.  Hence,  in  order  to  properly  under- 
stand that  nature,  we  require  to  know  all  the  elements  that  enter 
into  it.  But  we  can  abbreviate  the  analysis  for  Ethics  which 
would  have  to  be  more  elaborate  in  Psychology.  Hence,  we  shall 
merely  outline  the  whole  field  of  mental  phenomena.  A  sketch 
of  this  kind  is  represented  by  the  following  tabular  review. 

I.  Intellection. — This  is  the  general  process  occupied  with  the  acqui- 
sition, retention,  ^reproduction,  and  elaboration  of  conceptions. 
It  includes  three  subordinate  processes. 


106  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

1st.  Cognition  =  Consciousness  of  present  objects. 

1.  Sensation  =  A  flection  or  Reaction  of  the  organism. 

2.  Perception  =  Apprehension  of  an  object. 

2d.   Conservation  =^  Preservation  and  Consciousness  of  past  objects. 

1.  Eetention  =  Passive  Memory. 

2.  Reproduction  and  Association  =  Kecall. 

3.  Recognition  =  Active  Memory. 

3d.  Construction  =  Consciousness  of  relations.  The  process  is  one  of 
comparison  and  synthesis. 

1.  Conception  =^  Synthesis  of  percepts. 

2.  Judgment  =  Synthesis  of  concepts. 

3.  Reasoning  =  Synthesis  o{  judgments. 

II.  Emotion. — Tliis  is  a  general  state  of  excitement  attending  the  exer- 

cise of  function,  or  interesting  the  subject  as  an  attraction  or 
repulsion. 

1st.  Subjective,  or  Reflexive  Emotion  ^=  Sensibilities  or  Pleasures  and 
Pains.  These  are  reflexes  of  activity,  functional,  intellectual, 
and  volitional. 

2d.  Objective,  or  Impulsive  Emotion  =  Passions.  These  are  the  attrac- 
tions and  repulsions  of  consciousness  directed  toward  objects. 

III.  Conation. — This  is  the  general  faculty  of  effort  or  all  the  influences 

of  the  mind  which  issue  in  activity. 

1st.  Motive  Powers  =^  Desires  and  Legislative  functions  of  conscious- 
ness. 

1.  Impulse  ^  Non-deliberative  and  Unadjusted  Passion. 

2.  Instinct  =  Organic,  Co-ordinated,  and  Adjusted  Desires. 

3.  Reason  =^  Deliberative  and   Regulative   Forces  of  Con- 

sciousness. 

(a)  Prudential  Reason  ;    Utility  or  Interest  is  its  object. 

(6)  Moral  Reason,  or  Conscience  ;  Duty  or  Virtue  is  its 

object. 

2d.  Active  Powers  =  Determinative  and  Initiative  Functions  of 
Consciousness. 

1.  Choice  =  Determinative.     Internal    in     its    nature    and 

decides   the   character   of  the   agent,  or   the   subjective 
quality  of  moral  action. 

2.  Volition  =  Executive.     External  in  its  eflect  and  decides, 

though  it  docs  not  constitute,  the  objective  quality  of 
moral  action. 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  107 

In  distinguisliing  man's  moral  from  his  intellectual  nature  we 
do  not  wholly  exclude  the  latter  functions,  but  we  merely  add 
them  to  those  which  we  regard  as  more  particularly  constituting 
the  moral,  and  these  are  the  emotional  and  conative  functions. 
Intellectual  operations,  occupied  with  the  acquisition  of  mere 
knowledge,  concern  themselves  with  facts,  events  or  phenomena 
as  they  occur  according  to  natural  law.  They  simply  observe 
and  explain  them.  Thus  intellectual  processes  are  speculative, 
reducing  phenomena  to  their  laws  and  causes.  On  the  other 
hand,  man's  moral  functions  are  concerned  with  ideals  or  ends, 
as  opposed  to  mere  events.  They  estimate  the  value  or  uwiJi  of 
certain  facts  and  objects  of  desire,  and  attempt  to  regulate  the 
pursuit  of  them  as  ends.  This  contrasts  them  with  the  intel- 
lectual processes  as  occupied  with  an  order  of  events  already 
produced,  and  shows  them  concerned  with  a  possible  order  of 
events  not  yet  realized,  and  which  must  be  realized  by  the  will. 
But  in  spite  of  this  difference  intellectual  activities  are  involved 
in  the  moral.  Consciousness  is  always  involved  in  the  judg- 
ments of  value  and  the  motivation  of  volition.  Cognition  is  an 
invariable  element  of  the  estimation  of  values  and  ends,  and  the 
speculative  functions  are  necessary  to  the  determination  of  the 
means  to  ends.  And  "  means  "  is  only  a  term  to  denote  the 
practical,  as  "  cause  "  is  a  term  to  denote  the  theoretical,  relation 
of  events.  Moral  consciousness  determines  the  ends  of  life  and 
the  legitimate  means  to  them,  while  purely  intellectual  conscious- 
ness determines  the  causal  relations  of  phenomena,  which  indi- 
cate what  can  be  the  means  to  ends.  The  former  is  helpless, 
however,  without  the  accompaniment  of  the  latter,  and  hence 
cognition  must  always  be  a  fundamental  element  of  moral  con- 
sciousness. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  the  detailed  relation  of  the 
subordinate  faculties  to  the  moral.  It  is  enough  to  know  that 
they  enter  into  the  subject  matter  and  processes  of  moral  plie- 
nomena  as  general  elements  wherever  cognition  is  a  part.  It  is 
only  necessary  to  emphasize  the  function  of  the  knowing  process 
in  order  to  set  aside  the  doctrine  that  moral   consciousness  is 


108  ELEMEMS  OF  ETHICS 

simple  and  unique.  The  temptation  to  regard  it  as  such  comes 
from  the  prominence  of  the  feelings,  expressed  by  pleasure  and 
pain  and  the  sense  of  duty,  in  moral  consciousness  as  a  whole, . 
which  do  not  apj^ear  as  distinctive  in  theoretical  occupations. 
But  the  necessity  of  knowing  the  highest  good,  of  discriminating 
between  objects  that  compete  with  it  for  this  supremacy,  of  as- 
certaining what  are  the  possible  means  to  any  end,  as  well  as  the 
right  means,  is  evidence  of  what  pure  cognition  does  for  con- 
science, and  hence  it  must  be  recognized  as  a  psychological 
datum  in  the  complex  known  as  moral  consciousness. 

It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  we  use  the  terms  "  moral  con- 
sciousness" as  an  expression  for  the  ensemble  or  aggregate  of  all 
the  intellectual,  emotional,  motive  and  active  functions  of  the 
mind  as  exercised  with  objects  called  moral.  In  that  sense  we 
may  regard  it  as  unique.  But  it  is  so  by  virtue  of  the  object 
with  which  it  is  occupied  rather  than  because  of  the  mental 
processes  involved,  which  are  the  same  as  in  other  mental  activi- 
ties. Thus  moral  judgment  is  simply  discrimination  in  regard  to 
right  and  wrong ;  moral  emotion  is  approval  or  disapproval, 
while  intellectual  emotion  is  satisfaction  or  dissatisfaction  in  the 
discovery  of  truth ;  moral  choice  is  a  decision  between  right  and 
wrong,  while  in  scientific  matters  it  is  attention  or  correct  selec- 
tion of  facts.  In  this  way  we  readily  perceive  that  moral  con- 
sciousness is  not  only  complex,  but  differs  from  any  other 
consciousness  only  in  the  subject  matter  with  which  it  deals. 

Again  the  Sensibilities  and  the  Passions  are  prominent  elements 
of  the  moral  nature.  For  instance,  pleasure  and  pain  are 
accompaniments  of  nearly  every  form  of  action,  functional  or 
volitional,  and  we  are  obliged  to  take  account  of  them  in  regu- 
lating our  conduct.  They  may  become  the  sole  object  of  voli- 
tion, the  one  of  pursuit  and  the  other  of  aversion,  and  lead  to 
the  disregarding  of  other  ends.  Again  the  passions  of  love, 
hatred,  sympathy,  fear,  anger,  malice  are  influences  on  character, 
or  expressions  of  it  and  require  to  be  properly  directed.  Tiiey 
are  moral  agencies  in  so  _far  as  they  are  rationally  controlled 
and  directed  and  hence  make  up  a  part  of  the  moral  nature  of 


ELEMENTABY  PRINCIPLES  109 

the  subject.  The  study  of  them  and  of  the  means  of  keeping  both 
the  sensibilities  and  the  passions  under  subjection  is  a  very- 
important  part  of  Ethics. 

The  conative  functions  are  a  still  more  important  element  of 
moral  consciousness.  All  moral  action,  so  far  as  it  is  rational, 
and  it  is  perhaps  impossible  to  conceive  any  other  as  moral,  must 
have  its  motives  and  its  executive  character.  The  motive  is  the 
consciousness  of  a  purpose  or  end  and  the  accompaniment  of  a 
desire  to  act.  It  is  the  impelling  character  of  consciousness.  It 
may  take  any  one  of  the  three  forms  mentioned — impufee, 
instinct,  or  reason.  All  these  go  to  make  up'  the  agent  considered 
as  a  moral  being  and  so  are  a  part  of  the  psychology  of  conduct. 
Then  there  is  the  choice  and  the  volition.  The  choice  is  the 
decision  of  the  mind  between  two  or  more  alternatives,  and  it  is 
the  point  where  the  whole  character  of  the  agent  is  determined. 
It  is  the  first  element  of  action  properly  considered,  and  as  it  is, 
so  is  the  morality  of  the  man.  The  volition  is  the  determinate 
act  to  execute  a  choice  or  resolve  and  puts  into  effect  the  object 
chosen.  It  is  the  part  of  a  moral  act  which  sets  other  agencies 
going  to  achieve  a  result,  and  determines  the  good  or  bad  part  of 
conduct  apart  from  the  character  of  the  agent.  The  motive  and 
choice  determine  the  goodness  or  badness  of  the  will,  and  the 
volition  the  goodness  or  badness  both  of  the  character  and  of  the 
result,  of  the  former  as  an  expression  of  it,  and  of  the  latter  as 
the  cause  of  it.  The  psychology  of  morahty,  therefore,  involves 
all  these  complex  functions  as  determining  its  nature.  It  is  not 
a  unique  and  isolated  phenomenon,  but  absorbs  in  various  pro- 
portions all  the  operations  and  functions  of  the  mind. 

Having  thus  indicated  all  the  elements  that  enter  into  our 
moral  nature,  we  may  speak  of  them  comprehensively  as 
knowledge,  emotion,  and  volition.  This  conception  of  the  case 
will  enable  us  to  take  up  moral  action  and  discuss  its  nature. 
]\Ioral  action  covers  a  narrower  field  than  the  moral  nature.  It 
refers  mainly  to  the  will,  though  regarding  the  other  factors  as 
important  accompauiments.  But  in  taking  up  the  simple 
phenomenon  of  action  we  can  discuss  it  as  an  event  in  contrast 


110  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

with  actions  that  are  admittedly  not  moral.  The  first  problem, 
therefore,  ■will  be  to  decide  the  conditions  of  morality,  or  of  the 
distribution  of  praise  and  blame. 

IV.  THE  CONDITIONS  OF  MORALITY.— When  we  come 
to  classify  actions  connected  with  human  life,  we  find  many  of 
them  free  from  either  praise  or  blame,  and  yet  their  nature  and 
effects  make  them  resemble  those  which  are  moral  to  such  an  ex- 
tent as  often  to  cause  confusion  regarding  them.  Every  moral 
act  is  subject  to  praise  or  blame,  merit  or  demerit,  using  the 
term  moral  here  in  its  specific  sense.  It  is  in  this  way  contrasted 
with  all  actions  which  occur  without  the  intention  or  conscious- 
ness of  the  agent,  and  all  that  are  not  freely  performed.  Hence, 
the  following  conditions  of  morality : 

1st.  Consciousness  or  Intelligence. — Every  act,  in  order  to 
be  moral,  must  at  least  be  an  intelligent  act.  The  agent  must 
be  conscious  of  what  he  is  doing.  He  must  have  an  end  in  view, 
and  if  not  conscious  of  all  the  effects  that  may  follow,  he  must  at 
least  know  that  he  aims  at  some  result.  It  is  for  what  he  aims 
at  that  he  is  responsible,  and  he  cannot  be  responsible  for  any  re- 
sult of  which  he  is  wholly  ignorant,  and  which  it  is  no  part  of  his 
intention  to  effect.  That  is,  he  is  not  morally  responsible,  as 
that  term  is  technically  applied,  unless  conscious.  We  may  in- 
terfere with  him  to  prevent  such  an  action,  on  the  ground  that 
he  is  the  cause  of  it,  but  he  is  not  responsible  or  subject  to  praise 
or  blame  unless  the  act  be  conscious  or  intentional. 

There  is  a  whole  series  of  actions  that  cannot  be  moral  for  the 
want  of  this  characteristic.  First  among  them  are  jj^iysical  ac- 
tions which  are  the  necessary  effects  of  antecedent  causes.  Then 
there  is  the  class  of  reflex  actions  which  are  so  much  like  purely 
mechanical  movements  that  they  might  be  called  such.  They 
are  unconscious  and  physiological  responses  to  stimulus,  and  are 
illustrated  in  their  purest  forms  by  such  cases  as  circulation,  di- 
gestion, and  in  modified  forms  by  breathing,  winking,  etc.  Ac- 
tions also  which  represent  an  immediate  and  unreflective  response 
to  some  stinuilus,  though  we  become  at  once  conscious  of  them 
when  done,  are  true  reflexes.     Again,  automatic  or  spontaneous 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  1 1 1 

actions,  like  those  of  very  young  infants,  or  the  unregulated  and 
unconscious  or  unintended  acts  of  any  one,  not  affected  by  any 
known  stimulus,  are  also  like  the  reflexes  in  being  non-moral. 
They  are  physical  or  physiological  to  all  intents  and  purposes. 
That  they  are  not  moral  actions  is  a  truism  which  every  one 
knows.  But  they  afford  a  clear  illustration  of  what  must  be  one 
of  the  essential  conditions  of  a  moral  act.  They  lack  the  element 
of  consciousness.  The  agent  is  neither  conscious  of  the  result 
which  they  effect,  nor  does  he  consciously  aim  at  this  result.  But 
where  he  is  conscious  of  the  result,  and  intends  it,  he  is  responsi- 
ble. That  is  to  say,  that  to  be  conscious,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the 
effect  of  one's  action,  and  to  consciously  aim  at  it,  on  the  other, 
are  facts  which  place  such  actions  under  a  very  different  category 
from  those  which  have  just  been  mentioned.  Consciousness, 
either  aiming  at  an  end,  or  aware  of  a  result  connected  with 
volition,  characterizes  conduct  as  very  different  from  mechanical 
actions,  and  the  clearest  way  to  present  its  influence  in  this  re- 
spect is  to  compare  it  with  that  class.  Consciousness  is  presum- 
ably a  cause  or  antecedent  of  action  conditioning  or  accompany- 
ing, or  at  least  the  index,  of  the  power  to  determine  conduct 
otherwise  than  mechanical  or  unconscious  forces.  It  involves  a 
knowledge  of  alternative  courses  of  action,  and  even  when 
this  is  not  determinately  active,  it  represents  an  influence 
wliich  is  directed  to  an  end  as  distinguished  from  a  mere 
result,  and  in  this  way  qualifies  actions  so  that  they  cannot  be 
identified  with  physical  movements  and  their  antecedents.  It  is 
this  intelligence  which  makes  conduct  rational,  as  it  is  called, 
under  the  condition  described,  and  any  action  which  does  not 
come  under  some  degree  of  this  characteristic  must  be  excluded 
from  morality,  generically  considered,  and  treated  as  non-moral. 
2d.  Freedom. — But  there  is  a  second  equally  important 
condition  of  morality  closely  connected  with  the  first.  It  is  free- 
dom. It  is  not  enough  that  conduct  be  accompanied  by  con- 
sciousness ;  it  must  be  free.  The  subject  must  be  the  cause  of 
the  action  and  capable  at  least  of  knowing  that  some  other 
alternative   was   possible   than  the   one  actually    chosen.     AVe 


112  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

cannot  at  present  discuss  either  what  is  meant  by  the  freedom  of 
the  will  or  the  question  Avhether  it  is  free  or  not.  We  can  only 
point  out  that  in  some  sense  there  must  be  what  is  called  free 
will  if  morality  be  possible  at  all.  We  are  not  here  assuming 
that  there  is  any  such  thing  in  fact  as  morality,  but  only  that 
morality  and  freedom  must  stand  or  fall  together  ;  that  freedom 
is  a  primary  condition  of  it,  if  morality  exists  in  fact.  The  term 
is  unquestionably  used  in  different  senses,  which  we  shall  have  to 
examine  again,  but  there  is  one  general  conception  of  it  that  all 
would  admit,  and  this  is  that  a  free  act  is,  in  the  first  place, 
initiated  by  the  subject,  not  by  the  object  or  external  world, 
and,  in  the  second  place,  is  consciously  willed  with  a  knowledge 
of  alternative  possibilities  (whether  the  agent  can  choose  between 
them  or  not).  In  this  sense,  at  least,  every  act  must  be  free  in 
order  to  be  moral.  All  such  actions  of  my  person  as  are  reflex, 
automatic,  or  performed  unconsciously  are  not  free ;  that  is,  I 
have  not  caused  them.  So  with  any  actions  forced  upon  me, 
and  of  which  I  am  the  mere  instrument.  Properly  speaking, 
they  are  not  mxj  acts  :  they  are  only  connected  with  my  physical 
person.  Thus  if  some  other  being  or  person  uses  my  hand  or 
limbs  to  effect  any  result,  if  I  am  the  passive  instrument  for 
inflicting  an  injury  upon  some  one,  as,  for  instance,  being  pushed 
against  another,  my  action  is  not  free.  Strictly  speaking  it  is 
not  my  act  at  all,  though  its  connection  with  my  person  gives 
rise  to  the  habit  of  calling  it  mine.  But  it  is  not  a  free  act, 
not  being  willed  or  initiated  by  myself,  and  I  cannot  be  made 
responsible  for  it.  Neither  praise  nor  blame  can  attach  to  it, 
and  hence  it  is  not  moral  in  any  sense  of  the  term.  To  be  such 
I  must  Avill  the  action.  I  must  be  the  free,  spontaneous  cause  of 
it.  In  this  way  we  must  regard  freedom  as  a  fundamental  con- 
dition of  morality, 

3d.  Conscience. — Conscience,  speaking  generally,  is  the 
power  to  distinguish  between  right  and  wrong,  whatever  we  may 
say  about  its  additional  functions.  This  faculty  or  power  must 
be  possessed  by  every  free  agent  in  order  to  be  moral  or  to 
make  his  conduct  moral.     It  is  not  enough  that  he  be  free  and 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  1 1 3 

intelligent  or  conscious.  He  must  also  be  able  to  appreciate  the 
existence  of  a  moral  ideal  and  to  distinguish  between  right  and 
wrong.  It  is  probable  that  all  the  higher  animals  act  both 
consciously  with  reference  to  an  end  and  with  a  measurable  de- 
gree of  deliberation  and  freedom,  but  they  lack  all  traces  of 
what  we  call  conscience,  even  when  they  do  noble  acts,  some  of 
which  are  recorded  of  them.  It  is  usual  to  explain  such  actions 
by  reference  to  instinct,  association,  sympathy  for  masters,  but 
not  by  reference  to  a  conscience  as  we  know  it  in  man.  I  do  not 
mean  by  this  to  affirm  the  broad  distinction  between  man  and 
the  animals  which  was  current  before  evolution  was  accepted, 
but  only  to  indicate  that  the  difference  is  great  enough  to  be 
embodied  in  the  doctrine  of  conscience  ;  for  nothing  can  be  more 
certain,  whatever  the  resemblances,  that  man  has  a  nature  in 
relation  to  conduct  which  animals  do  not  systematically  betray, 
and  no  one  adjudges  the  animal  world  as  moral  or  responsible. 
Animals  are  either  almost  wholly  egoistic  in  their  character  or 
they  act  without  the  slighest  sense  of  duty  or  respect  for  law,  so 
far  as  can  be  determined.  Hence  despite  their  consciousness 
and  freedom  they  have  not  the  remaining  quality  to  make  their 
actions  moral,  subject  to  praise  and  blame  or  moral  disci- 
pline. This  contrast  helps  distinctly  to  show  how  conscience, 
which  distinguishes  man,  must  be  a  condition  of  morality  and  re- 
sponsibility ;  for  wherever  the  person  or  creature  is  suspected  of 
being  without  it,  his  conduct  is  classed  as  morally  indifferent. 
It  cannot  possess  that  quality  of  reason  and  will  which  acknowl- 
edges consciously  a  distinction  between  right  and  wrong.  I  am 
not  saying  or  implying  that  conscience  must  be  active  in  all  ap- 
plied cases,  but  only  that  the  individual  must  have  the  capacity 
for  the  distinction  mentioned  before  his  action  can  be  treated  as 
moral.  The  relation  of  an  active  conscience  to  conduct  will  come 
up  again.  But  to  distinguish  between  moral  and  non-moral  con- 
duct the  agent  must  have  the  sense  of  value  and  obligation  in 
social  relations  to  at  least  a  limited  degree  ;  that  is,  he  must 
have  the  quality  of  power  expressed  by  conscience,  though  he  may 
not  have  the  quantity  of  development  of  it  represented  by  perfect 


114  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

responsibility.  This,  then,  is  a  primary  eonditiou  of  treating  his 
actions  as  moral  in  any  sense  whatever. 

There  are  certain  interesting  facts  to  be  noted  about  these  con- 
ditions. They  are  cumulative  in  their  nature.  Besides  being 
conditions  of  morality  they  are  related  to  each  other  somewhat  in 
the  same  way.  The  first  conditions  the  second,  and  the  second 
along  with  the  first  conditions  the  third.  The  presence  of  all  of 
them  at  the  same  time  is  necessary  to  make  conduct  moral,  but 
the  absence  of  any  one  is  sufficient  to  eliminate  that  quality. 
But  the  absence  of  the  first  will  render  the  existence  of  both 
freedom  and  conscience  impossible,  while  it  may  be  present  and 
both  of  these  absent.  This  merely  shows  that  freedom  and  con- 
science are  qualities  added  on  to  consciousness. 

Another  circumstance  to  be  observed  is  that  these  qualities 
condition  morality  in  the  generic  sense.  The  possession  of  them 
does  not  make  an  act  moral  in  the  specific  sense,  as  contrasted 
with  immoral.  They  merely  make  it  accountable,  or  moral  in 
the  sense  that  the  agent  can  be  treated  according  to  the  law  of 
imputability  which  assumes  that  he  is  more  or  less  capable 
of  alternative  choice.  A  man  may  be  conscious  or  intelligent,  he 
may  be  free,  and  he  may  have  a  conscience,  and  yet  his  conduct 
be  immoral.  This  shows  that  they  are  not  elements  but 
conditions  of  morality.  One  other  condition  is  necessary  to 
make  conduct  moral  in  the  specific  sense.  It  is  conscientiousness, 
or  respect  for  the  end  chosen,  as  the  right,  or  as  the  highest  good. 
I  shall  not  enlarge  upon  this  feature  of  the  problem,  because  it 
will  come  up  again.  But  it  is  important  to  remark,  before  going 
farther,  a  circumstance  incident  to  the  ambiguity  of  the  terra 
"moral"  as  it  has  already  been  defined,  and  calling  attention  to 
the  important  distinction  between  the  conditions  and  the 
elements  of  morality;  which,  however,  is  occasioned  mainly, 
if  not  altogether,  by  that  equivocation.  AYe  may  turn  next, 
therefore,  to  the  elements  of  moral  conduct  as  suggested  by  the 
distinction  to  which  we  have  alluded. 

v.— ELEMENTS  OF  MORA  L  COXD  UCT. — This  topic  can  be  dis- 
cussed without  reference  to  the  distinction  between  gencrically 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  115 

and  specifically  moral  actions,  for  in  tlie  broad  sense  they  have 
the  same /o/'Hia^  elements.  They  differ  only  materially',  that  is, 
in  the  character  of  the  elements  of  which  they  are  composed. 
Every  moral  act  is  complex,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  exists 
in  relation  to  the  subject  and  the  object,  or  the  agent  and  the 
patient,  the  person  acting  and  the  person  or  thing  acted  upon. 
The  word  "  action  "  might  not  indicate  this  fact  of  complexity, 
because  it  is  taken  in  its  abstract  sense  to  denote  merely  the 
volition  or  the  movements  taken  as  instruments  connecting 
the- subject  with  some  designed  result.  But  taken  in  its  complex 
applications  moral  action  necessary  includes  more  than  mere 
choice  alone  or  mere  movement  alone.  It  involves  both  the 
state  of  mind  and  will  which  is  the  antecedent  of  movement  and 
volition,  and  the  consequence  which  is  the  effect  or  object  of  that 
antecedent.  In  its  comprehensive  import,  therefore,  moral  con- 
duct comprises  three  elements,  the  motive,  the  act,  and  the  result. 
Calderwood  makes  them  the  motive,  the  aot,  and  the  end.  But 
the  motive  and  the  end  are  inseparable  and  imply  each  other,  so 
that  the  distinction  intended  to  be  conveyed  by  them  is  not 
sufficiently  clear.  Hence  I  choose  the  term  result  or  conse- 
quence as  indicating  something  which  does  not  necessarily  imply 
the  motive.  This  distinction  between  the  end  and  the  result  is 
an  important  one,  because  it  has  a  bearing  upon  the  compre- 
hensiveness of  morality.  The  end  is  a  principal  factor  in  deter- 
mining what  is  moral.  It  is  always  the  result  aimed  at,  and 
when  there  is  no  miscarriage  of  purpose  the  motive  and  result 
will  always  coincide.  But  there  are  often  results  in  connection 
Avith  volition  which  were  not  intended  by  the  agent,  and  Avhich 
yet  determine  the  character  of  the  conduct  without  involving 
the  morality  and  responsibility  of  the  agent.  Hence  it  is  neces- 
sary to  distinguish  a  certain  function  for  results  in  the  problem 
of  Ethics  apart  from  that  of  the  motive  and  end.  "Whether  we 
shall  call  the  result  any  part  of  morality,  considering  that  it 
may  not  be  intended,  depends  wholly  upon  the  conception  we 
take  of  morality.  There  are  two  separate  schools  in  regard  to 
this  matter.     One  of  them  estimates  morality  wholly  from  the 


116  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

standpoint  of  consequences  and  the  other  wholly  from  the 
standpoint  of  motives.  This  difference  makes  it  necessary  to 
examine  each  element  very  carefully  in  order  to  ascertain  the 
part  played  by  it  in  the  constitution  of  morality.  But  previous 
to  this  undertaking  it  is  important  to  state  the  reasons  for  so 
considering  the  several  elements  of  conduct. 

1st.  Reasons  for  the  Analysis  of  Morality. — There  are  sev- 
eral reasons  for  separating  morality  into  distinct  elements. 
Were  there  no  difference  between  the  schools  in  regard  to  it,  and 
were  the  ground  of  it  either  the  motive  or  the  consequences 
alone,  there  would  be  no  complexity  to  deal  with.  But  the  very 
fact  that  one  school  lays  the  whole  stress  upon  character,  and  the 
other  upon  consequences,  shows  that  the  conception  of  morality 
and  responsibility  is  distinct  in  each  case.  Common  sense  gen- 
erally exhibits  judgments  in  sympathy  with  both  schools,  either 
without  knowing,  or  with  entire  indifference  to,  the  contradiction 
which  is  often  charged  to  it.  Hence  we  have  the  following 
reasons  for  investigating  separately  the  motive,  the  act,  and  the 
result  in  conduct. 

1.  The  Subjective  and  Objective  Meanings  of  Moral- 
ity.— We  have  already  discussed  one  ambiguity  incident  to  the 
use  of  the  term  "moral,"  namely,  its  generic  and  its  specific 
import.  But  there  is  a  still  more  important  difficulty  and  this 
grows  out  of  the  hal)it,  now  of  using  it  to  denote  the  subjective 
conditions  of  conduct,  and  again  to  denote  its  objective  refer- 
ence, or  the  ground  upon  which  the  subjective  facts  and  conduct 
are  adjudged.  This  originates  in  the  following  manner:  On 
the  one  hand,  all  conduct  must  be  measured  by  reference  to  its 
end.  But  this  is  a  consequence;  only  it  is  the  consequence 
aimed  at,  and  this  partial  coincidence  of  the  motive  and  result 
often  gives  rise  to  their  confusion  with  each  other.  Again,  conse- 
quences are  good  or  bad  according  as  they  arc  related  to  human 
perfection  and  happiness,  and  reflect  their  character  upon  the 
actions  issuing  in  them.  This  quality  may  not  be  moral  good- 
ness or  badness,  but  only  a  characteristic  which  is  related  to 
human  welfare  for  good  or  evil  without  reference  to  the  motive 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  1 1 7 

producing  the  consequence.  As  good  and  bad  are  applied  to 
the  same  acts  when  originating  from  volition,  it  is  only  natural 
that  morality  and  the  good  should  become  confused  with  each 
other,  and  the  former  measured  solely  by  reference  to  conse- 
quences. 

On  the  other  side,  as  remarked,  ends  and  consequences  or  re- 
sults do  not  always  coincide.  Consequences  of  which  the  agent 
may  be  wholly  ignorant,  and  at  which  he  did  not  aim,  may  be 
produced  by  his  conduct.  For  these  he  cannot  be  held  respon- 
sible, and  as  morality  and  responsibility  are  often  made  coexten- 
sive in  their  import,  it  would  be  natural  to  exclude  consequences 
per  se  from  the  strict  consideration  of  morality,  and  to  limit  that 
quality  to  the  motive  or  end.  Physical  results  not  aimed  at  or 
not  known  may  occur  incidentally,  and  be  good  or  bad,  but  con- 
sciousness, being  a  condition  of  what  is  moral,  and  presumably 
absent  in  this  imaginary  case,  while  morality  is  supposably 
initiated  by  volition,  the  conception  of  that  characteristic  is 
naturally  confined  to  the  intelligent  cause  or  motion  of  the  re- 
sult, rather  than  to  the  result  itself.  Hence  one  school  measures 
morality  by  the  antecedent  or  cause  of  results  aimed  at,  exclud- 
ing consequences,  as  equally  irrelevant  with  purely  physical  phe- 
nomena, while  the  opposing  school  measures  it  by  consequences 
and  confuses  the  subjectively  moral  or  immoral  vnth.  the  objec- 
tivelxj  good  or  bad. 

2.  The  Ambiguity  of  the  Term  Act. — There  is  an  equivo- 
cation in  the  use  of  this  term  which  almost  coincides  with  the 
subjective  and  objective  reference  of  the  term  moral.  Some- 
times it  is  used  to  denote  the  external  and  physical  action  neces- 
sary to  eflbct  the  result  or  end  which  the  agent  has  in  view,  and 
again  it  sometimes  denotes  the  internal  act  of  choice  and  voli- 
tion. We  condemn  fraudulent  voting,  or  bribery,  for  instance, 
no  matter  what  the  motive  may  be.  We  do  so  because  of  the 
unfairness  and  injustice  done  by  it,  and  in  this  way  seem  to  re- 
gard only  the  consequence  as  the  measure  of  Avrong.  The 
"  action  "  in  such  a  case  is  eitlier  the  whole  complex  act  of  the 
agent   combined  with    the    physical    movements  necessary   to 


118  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

achieve  the  result,  or  it  is  the  latter  of  the  two  alone.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  a  man  attempts  bribery  or  fraudulent  voting,  but 
fails  in  it,  we  equally  condemn  the  "  act,"  though  no  bad  results 
are  effected.  We  take  into  account  the  intention  or  motive. 
Similarly  we  condemn  the  desire  to  do  an  injury  or  the  feeling 
of  malice,  and  approve  humane  sympathies.  In  such  cases  the 
"  act "  is  nothing  but  the  subjective  intention  or  expression  of 
character.  Hence,  in  the  one  instance,  action  denotes  either  the 
whole  complex  phenomenon  of  choice,  volition,  and  the  external 
movement,  or  merely  this  external  physical  act.  In  the  other  it 
denotes  only  the  motive  and  choice.  Here  again  we  have  the 
distinction  between  subjective  and  objective  morality,  a  distinc- 
tion which  is  rendered  necessary  by  the  frequent  miscarriage  of 
purposes. 

3.  The  Difference  between  the  Criterion  of  Respon- 
sibility AND  that  of  Morality. — The  standard  of  responsi- 
bility consists  of  intelligence,  freedom,  and  conscience,  and  hence 
is  purely  subjective.  The  element  which  usually  receives  the 
most  emphasis  is  freedom,  and  hence  responsibihty  is  viewed  from 
the  position  of  the  cause  of  action,  and  not  from  that  of  the  effect 
or  consequence.  Xo  man  is  held  responsible  for  the  consequences 
of  his  conduct  unless  several  conditions  are  fulfilled  :  (a)  that  he 
intends  them ;  (5)  that  he  knows  they  are  connected  with  his 
conduct,  though  they  are  not  the  object  of  it ;  (c)  that  he  is  not 
culpable  for  his  ignorance.  Hence  supposing  that  the  conse- 
quence is  wholly  outside  the  agent's  knowledge  and  intention,  he 
is  not  responsible.  In  this  conception  of  the  case  if  morality  were 
limited  to  motives,  as  in  one  school,  it  would  coincide  with  respon- 
sibility. But  on  the  other  side,  a  man's  conduct  is  good  or  bad 
externally  by  virtue  of  its  relation  to  consequences  and  without 
regard  to  motives.  Even  the  character  of  motives  is  measured 
by  the  result  aimed  at,  and  not  by  their  qualities  per  se,  unless 
we  identify  them  with  excellence  or  perfection  of  being ;  which, 
however,  can  be  done  only  by  a  stretch  of  moral  judgment.  But 
so  far  from  measuring  the  worth  of  conduct  externally  considered 
by  the  cause  of  it  we  estimate  it  solely  by  reference  to  the  end. 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  119 

or  the  consequence  to  which  it  is  a  means.  Consequently,  as 
morality  and  responsibility  are  sometimes  identified,  or  made  to 
coincide  with  each  other,  and  at  other  times  are  distinguished 
by  the  difference  between  their  criterion,  we  are  obliged  to  take 
account  of  different  functions  in  the  separate  elements  of  moral 
conduct  and  character  taken  as  a  whole.  We  may  then  sum- 
marize the  relations  of  these  elements  to  each  other  and  to  the 
whole  complex  of  which  they  are  a  part. 

2d.  Nature  and  Relations  of  the  Elements. — Each  element 
has  its  o^yn  place  and  characteristic,  and  exhibits  very  complex 
relations.  Some  are  subjective  or  internal,  and  some  are  objec- 
tive or  external,  and  again  they  may  have  both  references  at  the 
same  time  as  the  summary  will  indicate. 

1.  Motives. — These  are  subjective  in  their  nature,  but  may 
be  objective  in  their  reference.  That  is,  they  are  states  of  mind, 
but  are  directed,  or  may  be  directed,  only  to  some  result  outside 
of  the  mind.  The  judgment  of  them  as  moral  or  immoral  must 
depend  either  upon  their  relation  to  this  result  or  upon  them  as 
qualities  of  the  subject,  as  excellences  or  as  defects  of  nature  to 
be  desired  or  deplored  on  their  own  account. 

2.  The  Act. — The  act  may  be  regarded  from  two  points  of 
view ;  that  is,  it  may  have  two  elements,  each  having  its  own 
characteristic :  (a)  There  is  the  subjective  element  or  act.  This 
is  the  choice  and  volition.  They  reflect  the  moral  nature  or 
character  of  the  agent,  and  may  be  estimated  without  regard  to 
the  consequences,  but  not  without  regard  to  the  end.  (b)  There 
is  also  the  objective  element.  This  is  the  physical  movement  or 
effect  set  into  action  by  the  volition,  and  it  reflects  tlie  moral 
nature  or  character  of  the  result.  It  will  be  good  or  bad  accord- 
ing to  consequences  and  without  regard  to  intentions. 

3.  Result,  or  Consequence. — This  is  purely  objective  in  its 
nature,  unless  we  choose  to  regard  a  state  of  the  subject  like 
pleasure  or  feeling  as  the  result,  which  we  may  in  many  cases. 
But  even  then  it  is  objective  in  the  sense  that  it  cannot  be  di- 
rectly Avilled,  and  it  is  quite  as  often  some  effect  foreign  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  agent.     Considering  it  as  independent  of  the 


120 


ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 


end  it  will  be  purely  external  to  the  mind  as  objective,  and  will 
not  even  bave  a  subjective  reference.  Its  cbaracter,  unless 
regarded  as  a  means  to  a  remoter  end,  will  be  found  wholly  in 
itself.  Its  goodness  or  badness  will  express  its  intrinsic  (Qualities. 
4.  The  End. — I  mention  this  as  incidently  a  kind  of  fourth 
element.  It  partly  coincides  with  results  as  already  indicated. 
It  is  the  result  aimed  at,  but  is  nothing  more,  and  hence  cannot 
denote  all  the  consequences  that  may  be  unintentionally  con- 
nected with  conduct.  It  is,  therefore,  objective  in  its  nature, 
though  subjective  in  its  reference.  A  motive  we  have  seen  is 
subjective  in  nature  but  objective  in  its  reference ;  the  end  is  the 
reverse  of  this,  and  partakes  of  a  like  double  nature.  It  will  be 
seen  in  this  conception  of  it  that  it  coincides  partly  with  motives 
and  partly  with  results.  It  is,  therefore,  the  point  where  subjec- 
tive and  objective  morality  coincide,  though  a  perfect  and  ideal 
world  would  also  include  all  the  consequences  that  are  desirable 
and  exclude  the  undesirable.  All  these  relations  may  now  be 
represented  by  the  following  diagram  and  their  character  de- 
termined according  to  one's  preferences.  Each  rectangle  will 
represent  the  whole  area  of  a  single  element,  and  all  combined 
the  total  of  the  references  expressed  by  the  idea  of  morality,  as 
conceived  bv  both  schools. 


Mot 

ive 

Choice 

Volition 

Motion 

End 

^ 

Kesult. 

Act 

Morality 


The  diagram  represents  both  the  chronological  order  and  con- 
nection of  the  several  elements,  and  the  reference  of  the  motive 
to  the  end,  which  is  a  logical  connection.  The  act  may  be  any 
one  of  the  three  elements,  choice,  volition,  or  physical  motion,  or 
all  of  them  coml^incd.     The  result  may  or  may  not  include  the 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  1 2 1 

end.  In  one  school,  morality,  or  the  character  of  conduct,  may- 
be measured  by  nothing  except  wliat  conies  within  tlie  free  and 
intentional  effect^  and  in  the  other  school  it  may  appear  worthy 
or  reprehensible  according  to  results  independently  of  the  will, 
though  the  agent  may  be  excused  from  responsibility. 

Thus  far  we  have  done  nothing  but  analyze  the  conception  of 
morality,  stating  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  whole. 
But  there  is  more  to  be  done  still.  We  have  assumed  that  the 
nature  and  meaning  of  the  term  "motive"  was  clear  and  intel- 
ligible. But  this  is  far  from  being  true.  We  require  to  define 
it  carefully  and  to  investigate  its  forms  as  usually  represented 
and  thus  to  determine  more  carefully  the  relations  of  this  and 
other  elements  to  the  total  product  known  as  moral  conduct. 
This  must  be  done  under  the  title  of  the  functions  of  the  elements 
in  morality. 

VL  FUNCTIONS  OF  THE  ELEMENTS  OF  MORALITY.— 
There  is  something  more  to  be  determined  here  than  their 
chronological  order  and  logical  relations.  These  are  intimately 
connected  with  their  functions,  but  they  do  not  constitute  them. 
The  functions  of  the  elements  are  what  they  effect,  or  what  they 
contribute  in  quality  to  the  complex  whole  which  is  the  subject 
of  moral  judgment,  and  this  will  be  found  in  some  cases  to  con- 
sist of  more  than  one  characteristic.  Let  us  examine  the  func- 
tions of  each  element  more  carefully. 

1st.  The  Motive. — .The  function  of  the  motive  in  morality  will 
depend  wholly  upon  the  conception  we  take  of  it.  Unfortunately 
it  is  not  a  simple  conception,  as  the  diagram  above  seems  to 
imply,  unless  we  decide  to  limit  its  import  as  some  moralists  do. 
But  traditional  and  current  views  often  make  it  a  compound  of 
ideas  and  feelings  or  impulses,  each  with  very  different  functions 
in  the  problem.  Hence  we  must  define  and  analyze  it  very 
carefully. 

1.  Definition  of  Motives. — A  motive    is  an   idea   of  an , 
end  to  he  realized  plus  the  desire   for  it.     In    this   conception 
we  propose  to  represent  two  elements  as  necessary  to  the  nature 
of  a  motive  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  a  cognitive  and  an 


122  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

impulsive  or  dynamic  element.  Sometimes  the  term  is  taken  to 
denote  only  the  idea  of  an  end  to  be  attained,  and  sometimes  it  is 
applied  to  the  feeling  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  propelling 
force  of  consciousness.  The  former  emphasizes  the  place  and 
functions  of  reason,  and  the  latter  the  function  of  emotion  in  the 
conception  of  it.  Often  it  is  the  rational  element  that  is  sup- 
posed to  determine  the  moral  nature  of  the  motive  and  at  other 
times  the  emotional  or  desiderative  element  is  regarded  as  the 
moral  factor.  Thus,  wherever  reason  or  rational  consciousness, 
as  in  Plato,  the  Stoics,  the  Scholastics,  Kant,  Butler,  and  others, 
has  been  put  forward  as  the  principal  condition  of  morality  this 
element  of  the  motive  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  the  most 
important ;  nay,  as  the  only  one  which  could  make  conduct 
moral.  On  the  other  hand,  wherever  emotions,  feelings,  or 
desires,  as  opposed  to  mere  ideas,  as  in  the  Epicureans,  the  utili- 
tarians, the  aesthetic  school,  including  Hutcheson,  Hume,  Adam 
Smith,  and  others,  have  been  regarded  as  determining  the  moral 
nature,  the  dynamic  side  of  consciousness  has  appeared  to  be  the 
most  important.  This  is  reflected  in  the  various  impulses  and 
instincts,  or  forms  of  desire,  which  are  discussed  in  connection 
with  moral  ])roblems  and  regarded  as  imj^elliug  forces  acting  on 
the  will.  Thus  the  passions  and  desires  like  anger,  hatred,  love, 
hunger,  thirst,  lust,  ambition,  etc.,  are  always  spoken  of  as 
"  motives  "  to  volition,  even  when  they  are  described  as  blind, 
unreflective,  or  irrational  incentives.  Tlie  agent  is  supposed  to 
be  moral  or  immoral  according  as  he  is  governed  by  the  better  or 
the  worse  of  these  passions. 

But  I  cannot  agree  to  call  either  element  taken  alone  as  a 
"  motive,"  in  the  true  moral  sense.  Loosely  speaking,  we  may 
consider  every  necessary  antecedent  to  volition  a  "  motive," 
whether  it  be  ideational  or  emotional.  Conduct  under  such  an 
antecedent  cannot  be  moral  in  any  sense  of  tlic  term,  for  the 
^  reason  that  if  tlie  "  motive  "  be  an  idea  only,  it  has  no  directing 
power,  and  if  it  be  a  passion  only,  it  has  no  rationality.  There 
may  be  much  instinctive  action  under  the  law  of  dynaniogenesis, 
which  is  that  consciousness,  from  the  very  nature  of  its  emotional 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  123 

concomitant  and  coloring,  tends  to  issue  in  some  form  of  activity. 
But  the  want  of  direction  to  a  deliberately  chosen  end  in  such 
cases  prevents  such  action  from  being  rational  and  moral .  as  we 
understand  it,  whatever  we  may  choose  to  call  it.  It  may  have 
all  the  desired  results  of  a  moral  act,  but  it  depends  so  much 
upon  the  right  conditions  for  producing  the  particular  conscious- 
ness necessary  to  effecting  the  result,  and  lacks  so  completely  that 
reflective  character  expressed  by  the  knowledge  of  what  the  agent 
is  doing,  that  it  cannot  be  more  than  objectively  moral,  while  it 
may  be  subjectively  either  bad  or  indifferent.  I  prefer,  therefore, 
to  maintain  that  a  true  "  motive,"  as  the  subject  of  Ethics  must 
contain  both  a  cognitive  and  a  dynamic  element,  or  an  idea  and 
a  desire,  and  that  it  Avill  be  defective  in  moral  character  precisely 
in  proportion  to  the  absence  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  elements. 
If  consciousness  predominates  in  the  ideational  element,  there 
will  be  little  or  no  activity,  and  there  can  be  no  morality  until 
the  will  is  affected.  On  the  other  hand,  if  desire  predominates, 
and  reflective  tendencies  are  suppressed  by  blind  passion,  action 
will  not  be  moral  for  the  lack  of  rational  control.  Morality  is 
thus  the  rational  direction  of  consciousness,  and  the  motive, 
therefore,  contains  both  an  ideal  and  a  desiderative  or  dynamic 
element.  This  explains  why  a  motive  is  both  a  final  and  an 
efficient  cause  of  conduct,  and  though  it  creates  certain  difficulties 
in  discussing  the  freedom  of  the  will,  to  recognize  the  dynamic 
characteristic,  the  complex  nature  of  it  is  necessary  to  render  in- 
telligible Iwth  the  general  conceptions  of  morality,  and  the  scien- 
tific theories  of  it. 

Before  proceeding  farther,  it  may  be  important  to  examine  the 
distinction  sometimes  made  l)et\veen  the  "motive"  and  the  "in- 
tention "  of  an  act.  Bcnthani,  for  instance,  defined  a  motive  as 
that  for  which  an  act  was  done,  and  an  intention  as  both  that  for 
which  and  that  in  spite  of  which  an  act  was  done.  This  view 
makes  intention  more  comprehensive  than  motive,  and  includes 
it.     Others  have  followed  Bentham  in  the  distinction.*     It  has 

*  MuirheaJ,  Elements  of  Ethics,  p.  58.  Mackenzie,  Manual  of  Ethics, 
p.  39. 


124  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

some  importance  for  the  extent  of  responsibility  in  conduct,  and 
deserves  notice.  Mr.  Muirhead  states  it  very  clearly  and  briefly. 
" Intention,"  he  says,  "is  wider  than  motive.  The  former  may 
be  said  to  include  the  latter,  but  not  vice  versa.  For  while  the 
end  or  consequent  for  the  sake  of  which  the  action  is  done  is,  of 
course,  intended,  it  is  only  part  of  the  intention,  and  is  sometimes 
distinguished  from  the  other  part  as  the  *  ultimate  intention.' 
On  the  other  hand,  the  consequences  of  the  intermediate  steps  as 
the  means  adopted,  though  part  of  the  intention,  are  not  part  of 
the  motive.  Thus,  the  father  who  punishes  his  child  is  said  to 
intend  the  child's  good.  The  good  of  the  child  is  the  motive. 
But  he  also  intends  to  cause  the  child  pain ;  the  pain,  however, 
though  it  is  part  of  the  intention,  cannot  in  any  sense  be  called 
the  motive  or  reason  why  he  punished  him.  Or  take  the  case  of 
the  man  who  sells  his  coat  to  buy  a  loaf  of  bread.  His  motive  is 
to  buy  the  bread.  It  is  also  part  of  his  intention  to  do  so.  It  is 
part  of  his  intention  also  to  part  with  his  coat,  but  this  cannot 
in  auy  intelligible  sense  be  the  motive  of  his  conduct."  Thus 
the  motive  is  the  ultimate  end  sought,  while  the  intention  is  this 
end  plus  either  the  means  or  a  necessary  concomitant  of  it,  of 
which  we  are  conscious.  Responsibility  will,  thei'efore,  cover  all 
of  which  we  are  conscious  in  the  act,  no  matter  whether  it  is  a 
part  of  the  motive  or  not. 

2.  Classification  of  Motives. — The  function  of  motives 
in  determining  morality  will  depend  as  much  upon  their  kinds  as 
upon  their  nature  in  general.  Morality  is  often  a  thing  of 
degrees,  and  is  not  a  simple,  absolute,  or  uniform  type  of  action. 
It  is  noAV  more  and  now  less  pure  or  perfect.  This  is  deter- 
mined by  the  various  kinds  of  influences  affecting  conduct. 
These  influences  differ  in  their  relation  to  it,  and  hence  we 
may  cla.ssify  motives  in  two  ways,  according  as  we  are  viewing 
them  as  final  or  as  efficient  causes  of  volition,  that  is,  according 
to  the  two  elements  we  have  recognized  in  mijtives.  I  sliall 
speak  of  the  two  general  classes  as  the  cognitive  or  static 
motives,  and  the  impulsive  or  dynamic  motives,  though  they 
difier  only  in  the  degree  of  prominence  given  to  one  or  the  other 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES 


125 


element  in  motives  at  large.  Then  the  first  class  may  be  sub- 
divided according  as  the  ends  sought  are  subordinate  or  ultimate, 
immediate  or  remote.  The  second  class  is  the  same  as  given  in 
the  psychology  of  the  motive  powers  of  the  mind.  The  follow- 
ing table  represents  the  classification  : 


r 


Static 


Subordinate  Ends 


Ultimate  Ends 


Impulse 
Dynamic  ■{  Instinct 
Reason 


Fame. 

Wealth. 

Power. 

Knowledge. 

Art,  etc. 

Perfection. 

Happiness. 

Obedience,  or  Formal  Law,  etc. 

Passion. 

Pleasure,  etc. 


I  C 


Prudence  or  Interest, 
onscience  or  Duty. 


The  first  set  or  the  static  motives  represent  different  degrees 
of  morality  in  conduct  according  to  the  scale  of  values  attaching 
to  the  difiereut  possible  ends  of  action.  There  can,  of  course,  be 
but  one  ultimate  end,  but  I  have  mentioned  several  in  order  to 
recognize  the  standpoint  of  different  theories.  But  while  the 
moral  worth  of  the  static  motives  may  not  be  the  same  for  all, 
responsibility  is  the  same,  other  things  being  equal,  because 
this  depends  upon  mere  consciousness,  and  not  upon  any  degree 
of  value.  On  the  other  hand,  the  dynamic  series  represents  both 
different  degrees  of  responsilnlity  and  different  degrees  of  moral- 
ity, as  will  be  developed  when  we  come  to  the  problem  involved 
in  this  question. 

The  function  of  the  particular  ends  in  conduct  will  be  exam- 
ined when  we  consider  the  theories  of  Ethics  where  they  will  be 
sho'vni  to  illustrate  the  grounds  upon  which  morality  rests.  At 
present  we  wish  to  discuss  the  relation  of  the  dynamic  aspect  of 
motives  to  conduct.     These  must  be  taken  in  their  order. 

3.  Impulse. — It  is  not  easy  to  define  impulse  exactly.  The 
term  has  done  service  for  so  many  different  conceptions  in  the 
course  of  history  that  any   definition   which   happens   to   run 


126  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

counter  to  one  of  them  is  sure  to  give  dissatisfaction.  On  tlie 
one  hand,  it  has  often  been  spolcen  of  as  a  blind  and  irrational 
tendency  to  certain  kinds  of  action,  where  it  is  so  contrasted 
with  intelligent  influence  and  initiatives  that  the  impression 
often  gains  a  foothold  that  it  is  an  unconscious  stimulus  to 
action.  Thus  hunger,  thirst,  sex,  or  other  natural  appetites 
have  been  spoken  of  as  impulses,  partly  on  the  ground  of  their 
irrational  character  and  partly  on  the  ground  that  their  crav- 
ings do  not  point  to  any  definite  object  apart  from  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  appetite,  and  they  do  not  even  seem  to  express  any 
knowledge  of  this  end  until  experience  has  shown  their  meaning. 
They  are  cravings  in  the  dark,  so  to  speak.  Thus  Plato  con- 
trasted them  with  reason  and  created  the  psychological  tendency 
to  regard  them  as  natural  momenta  in  the  direction  of  certain 
actions,  and  so  opposed  to  rational  considerations.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  term  is  sometimes  used  to  denote  conscious  but  ca- 
pricious and  lawless  action  according  to  the  impression  of  the 
moment,  and  is  again  contrasted  in  this  way  with  rational  con- 
duct, which  is  supposed  to  be  regular  and  according  to  law. 
The  two  different  ideas  exj)ressed  by  it,  then,  have  been  ajjjjetite 
and  laivless  volition,  w4th  a  tendency  probably  for  the  two  to 
shade  off"  into  each  other  insensibly.  These,  however,  represent 
their  typical  forms. 

It  IS  the  second  of  these  which  comes  nearer  to  the  concep- 
tion which  we  wish  here  to  take  of  imiiulse,  the  former  being 
more  closely  allied  to  instinct  as  it  will  be  treated  presentl3^ 
Reflex,  automatic,  and  all  influences  to  muscular  activity  that 
are  unaccompanied  by  consciousness  are  to  be  discarded  from 
the  conception  of  it  because  they  are  not  subject  to  either  praise 
or  blame.  Impulse  wc  shall  treat  as  at  least  accompanied  by 
consciousness  of  the  direction  of  the  conduct  wliich  it  initiates, 
but  it  represents  no  law  of  ada[)tation  to  the  order  of  the  world. 
In  this  respect,  the  appetites,  wliethcr  organic  or  of  the  higher 
order,  do  not  resemble  Avhat  passes  for  impulse  in  ordinary  par- 
lance. Hence  we  shall  define  impulse  as  that  influence  ivhieh 
represents  the  momentary  and  unreflective  activity  of  the  mind. 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  127 

There  are  other  characteristics  and  connections  of  it,  but  the 
momentary  and  unreflective  feature  is  sufficient  to  distinguish  it 
from  the  other  forms  of  volitional  antecedents.  AYe  can  then 
illustrate  it,  and  show  what  an  iiifluence  it  exercises  ujion  con- 
duct. 

One  of  the  best  illustrations  of  impulse  is  the  whole  class  of 
passions,  such  as  anger,  extreme  fear,  love,  hate,  indignation, 
lust  and  lasciviousness  -in  their  voluptuous  forms,  alcoholism, 
and  the  same  characteristic  is  found  in  all  the  capricious  actions 
indicating  choice  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and  without  re- 
flection upon  possible  remoter  consequences  than  the  one  aimed 
at.  A  man  may  strike  another  suddenly  out  of  anger  and  re- 
pent at  leisure  of  his  rashness.  Under  sudden  fright  we  may 
shout  for  aid  when  calm  self-control  would  insure  us  greater 
security.  Love  is  proverbially  blind,  by  which  is  meant,  not 
that  the  action  which  it  dictates  is  blind,  but  only  that  the 
passion  is  too  strong  for  care  and  deliberation,  and  prompts 
action  for  immediate  satisfaction.  Hatred,  malice,  and  revenge, 
when  they  are  aroused,  inspire  conduct  without  any  regard  to  re- 
mote consequences  ;  and  so  with  the  other  regular  passions.  But 
impulse  is  shown  perhaps  more  clearly  in  the  caprices  and  irreg- 
ularities of  life  than  in  the  common  vices,  and  it  may  occur  in 
connection  Avith  emotions  or  feelings,  having  j)er  se  no  bad 
character,  but  which  under  restraint  and  regulation  might  be 
regarded  as  marking  meritorious  qualities.  If  a  man  act  under 
a  sudden  impulse  of  pity  or  sympathy,  and  give  alms  on  the 
street  without  inquiry  and  without  due  regard  to  the  consequences 
to  the  beneficiary,  he  is  acting  under  a  motive  which  must  be 
called  an  impulse  as  defined.  If  again  he  goes  oflT  at  a  sugges- 
tion upon  some  subject,  changes  his  resolution  the  next  hour, 
and  as  suddenly  chooses  some  other  course  of  action ;  if  on  one 
day  he  indulges  in  a  fit  of  drunkenness,  the  next  day  reforms, 
and  enters  on  a  definite  career  of  business,  as  suddenly  out  of 
some  whim  of  dislike  changes  this  resolution,  say  from  the  inten- 
tion to  be  a  lawyer  to  that  of  being  a  physician,  and  so  reflects 
during  his  life,  or  during  any  considerable  period  of  time,  this 


128  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

vacillating  character,  lie  is  said  to  be  a  creature  of  impulse 
merely  because  he  is  disposed  to  act  upon  the  idea  of  the 
moment,  and  without  reflection.  "Whenever  such  action  is  dis- 
cerned it  is  properly  described  by  that  term.  What  it  exhibits 
besides  this  is  the  utter  lack  of  adjustmeut  to  the  order  of 
things.  It  is  a  tendency  to  seek  gratification  at  the  expense  of 
unregarded  consequences,  and  thus  takes  no  account  of  the 
en\"iroumeut  which  regulates  the  individual's  welfare  and  develop- 
ment. In  fact  it  is  not  adjustment  to  environment  at  all,  unless 
we  should  say  that  its  gratification  depends  upon  changes  in  the 
external  world  as  irregular  and  caj)ricious  as  its  own  action.  It 
aims  only  at  personal  good,  and  takes  no  account  of  external 
law  and  order  beyond  the  realization  of  some  immediate  result. 
It  can  represent  only  a  possible  adjustment  to  an  environment 
as  variable  and  inconstant  as  itself. 

Yre  may  now  summarize  the  characteristics  of  impulse  as 
a  motive  to  a  certain  kind  of  conduct :  (a)  It  is  capricious  and 
irregular;  (6)  it  is  unreflective  or  non-deliberative;  (c)  it  is 
momentary  and  passionate  in  its  actions ;  (d)  it  neglects  remote 
consequences  for  immediate  ends;  (e)  it  represents  misadjust- 
ment  to  a  fixed  or  constant  environment,  and  a  possible  adjust- 
ment to  a  variable  and  lawless  order  or  environment ;  (/)  it 
probably  represents  a  predominance  of  the  dynamic  or  dynamo- 
genie  elements  in  consciousness. 

From  these  various  characteristics  it  is  apparent  that  the  main 
function  of  impulse  seems  to  be  what  the  very  term  implies, 
namely,  an  impelling  tendency,  though  it  is  possible  to  exagger- 
ate this  character  of  it.  It  obtains  the  credit  of  this  peculiarity 
from  the  readiness  of  any  given  suggestion  to  explode  into  a 
volition,  and  it  undoubtedly  illustrates  a  very  close  resemblance 
to  that  nexus  between  mechanical  events  w^hich  makes  the  ante- 
cedent the  direct  cause  of  the  consequent.  It  is,  therefore,  only 
natural  to  conceive  it  as  dynamic  or  efficient  in  contrast  with  de- 
liberative consciousness  which  seems  to  have  no  efficiency  what- 
ever. A  general  type  of  impulse  has  generally  been  taken  from 
the  actions  of  animal  existence,  where  we  seldom  find  deliber- 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  129 

ativc  luibits  of  any  kind.  Their  motives  are  the  impulses  of  the 
moment,  the  immediate  action  of  every  desire  that  possesses  any 
reasonable  amount  of  freedom  for  its  indulgence. 

It  will  not  be  difficult,  after  these  remarks,  to  determine  the 
moral  character  of  impulse  as  a  motive.  Of  course  we  might 
open  the  whole  question  whether  motives  of  any  kind  ever 
possess  either  merit  or  demerit.  Bentham  and  others  claim  that 
they  never  possess  either  quality.  But  they  are  here  speaking 
of  them  absolutely  and  out  of  relation  t«  an  end  or  result,  and 
it  is  not  necessary  to  assert  this  extreme  view  in  order  to  main- 
tain their  moral  character.  General  usage  approves  or  dis- 
approves of  motives,  regards  them  as  moral,  non-moral,  or 
immoral  whatever  its  reasons  may  be,  and  for  this  account  it 
pronounces  judgment  upon  the  character  of  impulse  as  an 
expression  of  character,  which  is  as  much  an  object  of  moral 
admiration  or  censure  as  any  result  of  conduct  can  be.  Taking 
this  tendency  in  the  main  as  just,  we  Avould  only  say  that 
impulse  is  not  especially  a  moral  characteristic,  or  it  can  be  this 
in  so  slight  a  degree  as  to  weaken  the  value  of  Ethics  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  at  all.  It  is  too  capricious,  irregular,  and  unreflec- 
tive  in  its  nature  to  provoke  the  respect  we  attach  to  morality. 
"What  is  moral  has  something  of  the  nature  of  law.  It  is  a  fixed 
and  rational  way  of  acting,  adjustment  to  an  external  order, 
equilibrium  of  internal  and  conflicting  forces,  and  the  supremacy 
of  the  law  of  conscience,  which  imposes  an  inflexible  duty  upon 
the  will,  if  it  be  nothing  but  the  formal  intention  to  act  accord- 
ing to  good-will  itself  But  impulse  has  nothing  of  such  a  law 
about  it.  It  represents  no  steady  object  of  pursuit,  but  only 
a  wayward  tendency  to  be  independent  of  law  or  limitations.  It 
is  freedom  without  rationality,  and  even  when  it  represents  what 
we  call  the  better  instincts,  such  as  sympathy,  pity,  or  afll^ction, 
we  do  not  admire  it  for  its  action.  We  simply  congratulate  our- 
selves that  it  has  not  gone  wrong  on  the  occasion.  But  we 
expect  no  consistency  from  it,  and  no  sacrifice  of  self  to  the 
larger  order  of  the  world  or  to  the  remoter  goods  of  life.  It  is 
simply  the   incarnation    of  lawlessness,  the   very  antithesis   to 


130  ELE3IENTS  OF  ETHICS 

all  the  higher  degrees  of  morality,  and  can  gain  only  a  passing 
tribute  when  its  fortune  carries  it  into  the  performance  of  an 
accidental  good.  We  like  too  well  to  see  law,  order,  and  char- 
acter, in  the  will  as  well  as  in  the  world,  to  sanctify  impulse  with 
moral  qualities. 

4.  Instinct. — Instinct  is  quite  as   difficult  to  define   as  im- 
pulse.    General  usage  is  perhaps  even  more  loose  in  its  practice 
regarding  the  term  than  in  the  case  of  impulse.     In  the  first 
place,  it  has  been   used  to  describe  "blind  and  unconscious" 
acts,  as  they  have  been  called,  which  in  reality  meant,  not  that 
the  action  was  wholly  unaccompanied  by  consciousness,  but  that 
there  was  no  knowledge  of  the  end  to  which  the  various  actions 
actually  tended.     It  was  an  easy  step  from  this  conception  of 
instinct  to  that  which  denoted  merely  mechanical  movements. 
If  consciousness  did  not  initiate,  but  only  accompanied  the  action, 
it  Avas  no  more  responsible  for  it  than  for  reflex  or  automatic 
movements,  so  that  the  impelling  cause  was  outside  of  it.     This 
idea  was  reinforced-  by  the  Cartesian  dualism,  which  made  all  the 
actions  of  the  animal  world,  called  instinctive,  automatic  in  their 
nature  and  source.     Descartes  regarded  animals  as  unconscious 
automata,  and  their  actions  instinctive,  though  imitating  the  ad- 
justments of  intelligence,     Mr.  Spencer  regards  instincts  as  com- 
plex reflexes.     Other  evolutionists  speak  of  them  as  "  inherited 
habits  "  or  "  lapsed  intelligence."     The  last  conception  of  them 
is  in  reality  a  theory  of  the  way  they  came  to  exist  rather  than 
a  notion  of  their  manner  of  action.     Still  other  Avriters  speak  and 
think  of  them  as  representing  a  certain  grade  of  intelligence,  as 
conscious  though  not  rational   in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term. 
There  is,  perhaps,  one  characteristic  common  to  all   these  con- 
ceptions, and  it  is  that  instinct  denotes  a  certain  fixed  disposi- 
tion or  organic  tendency  of  the  individual.     Under   this  con- 
ception the  ai)petites  are  often  called  instincts,  and  so  with  any 
persistent  inclination  which  shows  no   adaptability  to  change  of 
circumstances. 

AVe  should  summarize  these  various  conceptions  before  giving 
our  own  account  of  the  matter.     Instinct  has,  therefore,  variously 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  131 

been  conceived  to  be — (a)  Avholly  unconscious  and  automatic 
impulges ;  (h)  actions  accompanied  by  consciousness,  but  not 
initiated  by  it ;  (c)  conscious  but  not  rational  actions  in  the 
highest  sense;  (d)  complex  reflexes;  (e)  organic  tendencies 
reflecting  natural  as  opposed  to  volitional  causes.  In  all  these 
the  original  object  was  to  distinguish  between  rational  actions 
and  those  which  at  least  resembled  them  in  many  particulars 
and  yet  could  not  be  identified  with  them.  Hence,  Avhere  we 
find  the  law  of  continuity  between  the  lowest  and  the  highest 
forms  of  conduct,  as  it  is  illustrated  from  reflex  to  rational 
actions,  instincts  and  impulses  intervening  between  the  two 
extremes,  it  becomes  of  importance  to  distinguish  their  nature 
very  carefully,  especially  when  we  remember  that  some  writers, 
like  Leslie  Stephen  and  many  evolutionists,  speak  of  our  rational 
and  moral  desires  as  instincts.  Such  usage  only  shows  that,  in 
spite  of  the  traditional  contrast  and  antithesis  between  instinct 
and  intelligence,  there  is  often  no  clear  distinction  between  them. 
Hence  we  must  either  make  that  distinction  clear  or  abandon  it 
altogether. 

Such  a  distinction  can  be  drawn  without  making  the  two 
conceptions  mutually  exclusive  in  all  their  characteristics.  In 
fact  man's  nature  is  such  that  all  the  various  influences  affecting 
his  actions,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  interj^enetrate  each 
other  and  overlap.  No  classification  can  be  given  which  will 
exclude  one  impulse  in  all  its  characteristics  and  relations  from 
every  other.  They  often  merge  into  each  other.  The  organic 
appetites  show  afliliations  with  instinct,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
with  impulses,  on  the  other,  in  that  they  are  constitutional  ten- 
dencies, and  may  develop  into  passions  with  irregular  indulgence. 
They  may  also  become  so  fully  subordinated  to  rational  control 
that  they  can  be  spoken  of  as  natural  desires  only  with  the 
qualification  that  they  have  no  specific  object  for  their  craving. 
Again,  the  passions  may  become  so  fixed  and  persistent  a  ten- 
dency in  the  individual,  though  capricious  in  their  manifesta- 
tions as  to  resemble  the  predisposition  and  organic  stability  of 
instincts.     And  still  further  actions  often  called  instinctive  may 


132  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

be  so  iufluenced  by  the  accompaniment  of  consciousness  and  may 
so  thoroughly  resemble  intelligent  adjustments  of  conduct  that 
they  overlap  rational  actions.  But  in  spite  of  all  this  continuity 
and  interpenetration  of  functions  they  can  be  radically  distin- 
guished in  certain  particulars.  The  doctrine  of  Ethics  is 
interested  in  the  distinction  because  of  the  question  of  responsi- 
bility, and  because  of  the  different  kinds  and  degrees  of  merit 
attributed  to  human  actions.  Hence  we  shall  undertake  to 
define  instinct  with  these  facts  in  view,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
avoid  the  inconsistencies  of  current  and  common  usage. 

Instinct,  as  related  to  ethical  problems  as  well  as  the  psycho- 
loo-ical,  we  shall  define  as  a  constant  and  organic  tendency  to 
certain  actions,  representing  an  adjustment  to  a  definite  and  fixed 
environment.  The  full  meaning  of  this  conception  with  addi- 
tional characteristics  will  be  brought  out  by  its  further  develop- 
ment. In  the  meantime  we  wish  to  concentrate  attention  upon 
its  organic  and  more  or  less  fixed  nature,  together  with  the 
adjustment  which  it  represents,  as  the  true  characteristics  that 
are  most  important  for  Ethics.  In  its  highest  development  it 
may  at  least  be  accompanied  by  consciousness,  or  even  con- 
sciousness and  organic  impulse  may  combine  in  reference  to  a 
common  end. 

The  most  frequent  types  of  what  are  called  instincts  are  cases 
of  bees  building  their  honeycomb,  spiders  their  webs,  birds 
their  nests,  ants  their  homes  and  practicing  their  peculiar  forms 
of  industry,  the  migration  of  birds,  the  incubation  and  care  of 
young,  domestic  affection,  and  a  thousand  other  forms  of  con- 
duct. The  bee  in  building  its  honeycomb  adopts  the  most  per- 
fect form  for  economy  of  space  and  material,  namely,  the  hex- 
agonal ;  but  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  know  this  fiict.  All 
its  actions  show  a  mechanical-like  regularity  in  tlii*;  reference. 
The  spider's  wcl)  always  takes  a  form  peculiar  to  each  species, 
and  the  same  with  l)irds'  nests,  even  when  we  cannot  assume  any 
influence  from  experience.  In  all  those  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impos- 
sible, to  suppose  that  the  creatures  know  why  they  perform  their 
actions.     It  seems  as  certain,  also,  that  they  do  not  know  the 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  1 3  3 

ultimate  end  whicli  their  actions  serve  ;  and  it  may  be  doubtful 
whether  they  have  any  purpose  or  end  at  all.  Their  mechanical- 
like nature  and  regularity  seems  to  exclude  all  intelligence  and 
so  to  distinguish  their  actions  from  rational  conduct.  But  this 
distinction  can  be  exaggerated,  as  indicated  in  the  admission  that 
instinct  may  grade  oft'  into  automatic  actions  in  one  direction 
and  intelligent  actions  in  the  other,  so  far  as  the  characteristic 
of  consciousness  is  concerned.  The  main  peculiarity  of  them  is 
the  fact  that  they  represent  a  natural  and  organic  tendency  in  a 
particular  direction,  which  remains  more  or  less  fixed,  often 
resisting  all  influences  to  modify  them.  This  is  the  subjective 
aspect  of  instinct  and  represents  a  tendency  to  spontaneity,  that 
is,  spontaneous  action  independent  of  disturbance  or  stimulus 
from  the  outside.  It  thus  indicates  a  law  of  internal  action. 
Its  objective  characteristic  is  its  adjustment  to  a  constant  envi- 
ronment. Conceived  as  an  "  inherited  habit "  it  would  require 
that  constancy  in  nature  which  w'ould  render  its  exercise  pos- 
sible. It  is  true  that  environment  often  changes,  but  instinct 
very  generally  displays  resistance  to  this  change.  It  is  more 
especially  adapted  to  the  fixity  of  the  external  world  in  order 
to  act  on  the  line  of  least  resistance.  Hence,  it  is  an  organic 
tendency  adapted  to  a  certain  fixity  in  nature.  Thus  the  build- 
ing of  nests  where  they  can  be  put  to  no  use,  the  beaver  build- 
ing a  dam  in  its  cage  where  there  is  no  water,  geese  trying  to 
hatch  stones  or  "  dummy  "  egg's,  the  young  of  animals  trying  to 
suck  everything  that  comes  within  the  reach  of  their  mouths 
when  hungry,  the  setter  showing  its  peculiar  habits  without  any 
education,  etc.,  all  these  are  illustrations  of  organic  dispositions 
that  do  not  wait  for  their  appropriate  stimulus  for  exercise,  and 
are  no  doubt  called  instincts  for  the  very  reason  that  they  do 
not  seem  to  show  the  adaptation  of  intelligent  motives. 

It  is  not  meant  here  to  say  or  to  imply  that  instinct  is  invari- 
able ;  for  modern  observation  shows  that  it  is  modifiable,  at  least 
to  some  extent.  But  it  shows  less  variability,  or  varies  less  easily 
than  intelligent  actions.  Instinct  is  conservative,  and  yields  to 
external  influences  with  considerable  resistance.     Hence  its  pre- 


134  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

dominant  tendency  is  to  be  constant  and  to  act  according  to  an 
environment  to  which  it  is  organically  adjusted.  This  is  prob- 
ably due  to  its  complex  nature.  INIany  of  the  instincts  are  very 
complicated  arrangements,  and  grow  out  of  complexity  of  struc- 
ture and  function,  all  the  elements  acting  in  harmony  either  be- 
cause of  long  experience  or  because  of  inherited  momentum  from 
previous  experience,  and  thus  make  it  difficult  for  the  variation 
of  one  element  without  the  simultaneous  variation  of  all  others. 
Hence  instinct  contrasts  with  impulse  in  this  respect,  is  regular 
and  constant  in  its  activity,  and  less  adapted  to  a  variable  envi- 
ronment. Thus,  to  state  its  objective  characteristic,  it  may  be 
said  to  be  an  organic  adjustment  to  a  constant,  but  a  misadjust- 
ment  to  a  varying,  environment.  "We  may,  therefore,  summarize 
its  several  characteristics  before  pointing  out  its  ethical  value : 
(a)  It  is  an  organic  or  constitutional  tendency  to  action ;  (6)  it 
is  spontaneous  in  its  exercise,  or  represents  internal  stimulus  as 
opposed  to  the  external ;  (c)  it  is  fixed  and  regular  in  its  activity ; 
(d)  it  is  complex  in  its  organization  and  exercise ;  (e)  it  is  adjusted 
to  a  definite  end  whether  conscious  or  not ;  (/)  it  is  preadapted  to 
a  fixed  but  not  to  a  changing  environment.  These  several  char- 
acteristics define  a  complex  phenomenon  without  raising  the  usual 
question,  whether  instinct  is  intelligent  or  not.  In  regard  to 
that  matter  it  is  proi:)er  to  say  that  I  do  not  think  consciousness 
is  either  always  absent  or  always  present  with  instinctive  inclina- 
tions. It  is  probable  that  in  its  lowest  forms  instinct  is  wholly 
unattended  by  any  consciousness  of  the  tendency  of  its  actions ; 
tlnit  in  the  second  stage  it  is  only  accompanied  by  consciousness, 
more  or  less  clear  of  its  object,  and  in  the  third  stage  conscious- 
ness begins  to  usurp  its  functions  by  suboi'dinating  it  or  by 
usurping  its  place.  Hence  it  di,<plays  in  this  way  various  de- 
grees of  approximation  to  the  liigher  orders  of  activity. 

In  regard  to  its  function  in  the  theory  and  conception  of 
morality,  its  importance  is  derived  from  this  very  peculiarity  as 
well  as  several  other  features  of  it.  First,  it  resembles  the  moral 
springs  in  the  characteristic  of  regularity  and  law  which  it  shows. 
Morality  nmst  have  this  (juality  whatever  else  it   must  have. 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  135 

Instinct  shows  that  fixity  and  stability  of  direction  \vhich  we 
always  expect  in  moral  character.  In  the  second  place,  it  shows 
direction  and  adaption  to  a  remoter  end  than  does  pure  impulse. 
Indeed  we  might  compare  impulse  and  instinct  by  saying  that 
the  former  looks  only  to  an  immediate  and  subordinate  end 
without  regarding  a  remoter  one,  while  the  latter,  whether  con- 
scious or  not,  is  adapted  to  the  remoter  end.  This  very  com- 
plexity of  organism  which  enables  the  individual  to  live  for  and 
to  realize  remoter  ends  has  a  value,  which,  if  it  does  not  confer 
morality  upon  the  actions  it  initiates,  as  we  understand  morality, 
exhibits  a  better  objective  order  of  creation,  and  represents 
something  which  moraHty  can  well  afford  to  imitate  in  its  regu- 
larity and  teleology.  Stability  of  character  is  an  essential, 
though  not  the  only  essential  quality  of  virtue,  and  instinct  fur- 
nishes this  characteristic.  In  the  third  place,  in  so  far  as  instinct 
may  be  accompanied  by  consciousness  it  approximates  again  the 
stage  of  moral  conduct.  Regularity  and  concomitant  intelli- 
gence give  it  a  higher  order  of  merit  than  purely  unconscious 
and  automatic  actions.  Lastly,  its  adjustment  to  a  definite  end 
and  a  constant  environment  give  it  both  a  subjective  and  an 
objective  value  which  allies  it  very  closely  to  the  objective 
aspects  of  morality.  That  is  to  say,  it  embodies  both  a  subjective 
and  an  objective  regularity,  which  are  important  elements  in 
moral  conduct.  Instincts  may  be  regular  and  yet  bad,  and  ad- 
justed to  bad  ends.  This  is  not  to  be  questioned,  and  they  will 
be  bad  precisely  in  their  proportion  to  their  fixity  and  wrong 
adjustment.  But  in  spite  of  this  they  show  the  constitutional 
and  organic  character  which  we  wish  for  perfect  morality  and 
which  is  a  sign  of  some  excellence  'wherever  found,  though 
requiring  to  be  supplemented  by  rational  and  moral  elements  as 
defined  by  right  adjustment  and  conscientiousness.  Hence  in- 
stinct represents  some  advancement  upon  the  pure  impulses.  If 
the  agent's  organic  desires  are  in  the  direction  of  right  ends  we 
can  trust  and  admire  him,  whether  he  appreciates  the  morality 
of  those  ends  or  not,  more  than  a  creature  of  impulses. who  shows 
no  adjustment  to  such  ends  at  all.     This  is  the  reason  that  we 


136  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

place  such  a  being  upon  a  liiglier  level  of  excellence  than  a  law- 
less creature,  though  he  may  not  answer  to  our  concejition  of 
moral  as  represented  by  rationality.  We  desire  an  agent  to  be  at 
least  constant,  and  if  that  constancy  or  stability  of  character  is 
marked  by  correctness  of  objective  direction  we  may  regard  its 
conduct  as  at  least  objectively  moral,  and  only  wish  that  the 
agent  might  be  endowed  with  better  perfections  ;  that  he  could 
be  as  moral  as  his  action.  But  until  instinct  becomes  wholly 
subordinated  to  intelligence  it  does  not  reach  the  highest  degree 
of  moral  excellence,  no  matter  how  true  it  may  be  to  the  moral 
ends  of  life.  It  is  simply  a  tendency  Avhich  we  can  rely  upon  to 
act  uniformly  in  a  variable  order,  at  least  generally,  but  shows 
less  perfect  adjustment  than  reason.  It  lacks  the  subjective 
characteristic  of  morality  in  all  its  forms,  except  the  attribute 
of  regularity. 

5.  Reason. — This  is  also  an  ambiguous  term.  It  has  a  log- 
ical, a  psychological,  and  a  moral  import.  Its  logical  meaning 
is  its  ratiocinative  application.  Here  it  means  the  ])oiver  of 
drawing  inferences,  or  of  reasoning  from  premises  to  conclimons. 
If  the  premises  are  general  truths  and  the  conclusions  particular 
ones,  the  reasoning  is  deductive  ;  if  they  are  facts  and  the  con- 
clusion is  a  general  truth,  or  some  probable  fact  containing  more 
than  the  premises,  the  reasoning  is  inductive.  With  this  mean- 
ing of  the  terra  Ethics  has  nothing  to  do,  though  as  a  science  it 
may  employ  the  ratiocinative  faculty,  and  in  framing  definite 
rules  for  life  we  may  do  the  same.  But  it  is  not  the  source  of 
motives  for  the  will  wlien  taken  in  this  sense.  The  psychologi- 
cal import  of  tlie  term  is  that  it  denotes  the  power  of  direct  or 
intuitive  insight  into  certain  facts  and  truths;  for  instance,  that 
pleasure  is  desirable,  that  the  truth  cannot  be  denied  when  per- 
ceived, that  every  cause  has  its  effect  and  vice  versa,  that  two 
and  two  make  four,  etc.  This  function  of  reason  has  its  place 
in  Ethics  in  determining  the  ultimate  good  or  the  special  ends 
of  conduct  that  present  themselves  for  consideration.  It  is 
cognitive  but  ni)t  impulsive  in  its  nature,  as  is  apparent  from 
describing  it  as  intuitive.     The  moral  application  of  the  term  is 


ELEMENT AR  Y  PRINCIPLES  137 

that  which  denotes  the  mind's  power  over  natural  desire.  Hence 
in  the  field  of  Ethics  reason  is  the  regulative  and  legislative  j^ower 
of  the  mind  controlling  and  directing  the  various  inclinations  to 
some  intelligible  and  ideal  end.  Ever  since  the  time  of  Plato, 
who  made  it  the  sovereign  over  the  passions  and  impulses,  this 
has  been  the  general  conception  of  it  in  Ethics.  It  is  important 
to  remark,  however,  that  its  true  function  in  morality  is  both  cog- 
nitive and  directive.  Plato  included  both  these  elements  in  his 
conception  of  it.  The  cognitive  was  its  function  as  conscious- 
ness of  an  end  and  opposed  it  to  desire  {t7ti0vfj.ia)  and 
impulse  {Ovfxos),  which  could  form  no  conception  of  their 
object  until  reason  supervened  to  do  so.  This  view  of  the  case 
survived  as  a  permanent  contribution  to  the  problem,  and  hence 
moral  reason  has  for  its  first  function  to  know  what  the  ultimate 
object  of  a  volition  is  in  any  particular  case,  and  how  it  can  be 
attained  without  entailing  any  evil  consequences.  But  this 
function  alone  does  not  take  reason  beyond  mere  prudence  or 
self-interest.  Hence  the  second  function  ascribed  to  it  is  the 
formation  of  an  imperative  ideal  which  shall  act  as  a  constraint 
upon  irrational  desires,  impulses,  and  passions,  and  a  motive  for 
its  own  realization.  This  is  the  legislative  and  directing  power 
of  reason  as  contrasted  Avith  mere  knowledge,  though  knowledge 
must  accompany  it,  and  it  is  embodied  in  the  modern  concep- 
tion of  conscience,  which  supervenes  upon  prudence  without  set- 
ting it  aside. 

Having  given  a  definition  and  a  brief  outline  of  the  function 
of  reason  in  conduct,  it  mil  be  in  place  to  describe  and  illustrate 
its  operations  more  fully.  We  should,  perhaps,  first  note  an  ob- 
jection to  the  use  of  the  term  at  all  in  the  moral  sphere.  We 
have  found  that  moral  phenomena  are  concerned  with  motives 
and  actions.  Actions  are  the  function  of  the  will,  and  it  is 
sometimes  said  that  reason  cannot  act  as  a  motive  to  volition. 
This  position  is  especially  urged  by  Hume,  who  maintains  that 
only  the  "  passions  "  (Hume's  term  for  emotions)  can  move  the 
will,  while  it  is  the  business  of  reason  merely  to  know  truth.  This 
objection  is  true  enough  from  the  ratiocinative  or  logical  con- 


138  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

ceptiou  of  "  reason,"  and  also  from  its  merely  cognitive  function. 
Mere  perception  is  not  a  motive  power.  But  as  the  real  ques- 
tion in  tlie  case  is  only  a  matter  of  definition  and  practical 
usage,  it  is  fair  to  use  the  term  to  denote  moral  functions,  pro- 
vided we  do  not  intend  by  it  to  attribute  dynamic  power  to  ab- 
stract ideas.  It  is,  uo  doubt,  unfortunate  that  custom  has  em- 
ployed so  equivocal  a  term,  but  long-established  usage  cannot  be 
set  aside  by  a  difficulty  of  that  kind,  unless  a  proper  term  is 
found  to  take  the  place  of  an  objectionable  one.  Hence,  as  long 
as  this  requisite  is  not  supplied,  the  only  alternative  is  to  define 
the  sense  in  which  "  reason  "  is  employed  to  denote  moral  func- 
tions, and  refuse  to  be  troubled  by  a  difierent  import  in  the  logical 
field.  Moreover,  we  have  already  seen  that  the  term  "  motive" 
in  Ethics  does  not  mean  merely  dynamic  power,  but  that  it  de- 
notes at  the  same  time  an  idea  of  an  end,  an  ideational  object. 
"We  even  found  that  some  moralists  used  it  to  denote  only  this 
object  and  so  made  it  a  purely  cognitive  function,  excluding  the 
impulsive  element.  With  this  conception  of  "  motive,"  the  term 
"  reason  "  could  well  be  employed  to  supply  it,  and  no  one  could 
exclude  it  from  moral  phenomena  without  fii'st  limiting  the  notion 
of  "  motive  "  to  suit  the  purpose.  But  since  motives  are  complex, 
involving  cognitive  and  dynamic  functions  combined,  and  since 
the  term  "  reason  "  often  denotes  the  whole  mind  as  occupied  with 
a  particular  object,  we  may  well  use  it  without  doing  any  vio- 
lence to  clear  thinking  for  describing  the  relation  of  the  man  to 
conduct,  whose  character  is  so  dependent  upon  knowledge.  It 
will  then  be  largely  a  matter  of  illustration  to  determine  what  is 
meant  by  the  term,  and  what  functions  are  ascribed  to  the  mind 
so  considered. 

"We  call  conduct  reasonable  when  a  man  acts  in  full  view  of 
his  own  and  others'  best  interests.  If  a  man  yields  to  intemper- 
ance we  say  he  lias  acted  unreasonably,  because  he  obeys  a  pass- 
ing impulse  or  passion  and  does  not  calculate  the  ultimate  injury 
to  follow  a  momentary  gratification.  An  impulse  acts,  as  we  say, 
Avithout  thinking.  Reason  in  its  relation  to  volition  thinks  or 
reflects  and  seeks  to  determine  whether  the  remote  consequences 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  139 

may  not  bring  more  evil  than  the  present  good  niay  compensate 
for.  A  reasonable  man  weighs  the  question  of  means  and  ends, 
brings  all  his  knowledge  to  bear  upon  the  case,  and  seeks 
to  ascertain  what  is  best  or  what  is  right,  and  acts  accordingly, 
instead  of  "  going  it "  blindly  or  yielding  to  the  first  instigations 
of  desire.  He  looks  before  and  after,  determining  his  relation  to 
all  the  contingencies  in  the  case  which  might  involve  his  happi- 
ness, his  character,  or  his  perfection.  He  will  not  be  intemperate 
if  he  knows  what  painful  consequences  are  involved,  he  will  not 
commit  murder  if  he  knows  the  penalty  for  it.  It  is  true  that  a 
man  may  act  against  the  counsel  of  conscience  or  reason,  but  he 
is  not  reasonable  when  he  does  so.  We  call  him  reasonable  when 
he  perceives  and  acts  according  to  the  monitions  of  his  best 
knowledge,  keeps  his  passions  under  control,  considers  the  har- 
mony of  his  life,  chooses  the  highest  ideal  of  which  he  is  capable, 
and  pursues  it  with  a  single  eye  to  its  realization.  "  Reason," 
says  ]\Ir.  Leslie  Stephen,  "  whatever  its  nature,  is  the  faculty 
which  enables  us  to  act  with  a  view  to  the  distant  and  the 
future.  Consequently,  in  so  far  as  a  man  is  reasonable,  he  is 
under  the  influence  of  motives  which  would  not  be  otherwise 
operative.  The  immediate  bodily  appetite  is  held  in  check  by  a 
number  of  motives  to  which  only  the  reasoning  being  is  acces- 
sible." In  all  this,  reason  means  more  than  mere  insight.  It  is  a 
general  term  for  the  union  of  insight  and  emotion  in  the  right 
direction.  In  this  way  it  gains  motive  power,  which  it  must  have 
in  order  to  regulate  the  competition  of  individual  desires.  It 
balances  the  various  interests  of  the  subject,  decides  the  highest 
and  enjoins  the  pursuit  of  it,  not  merely  as  an  interest,  but  as 
a  duty,  when  it  has  that  quality.  There  must  be  a  capacity  for 
this  function,  call  it  what  we  will,  and  as  reason  was  the  earliest 
term  to  denote  the  unity  of  all  the  individual  functions  of 
consciousness,  it  was  only  proper  and  natural  that  a  capacity 
comprising  the  conjoint  action  of  insight,  emotion,  and  legisla- 
tion, and  thus  presiding  over  to  regulate  all  the  anarchic  tenden- 
cies of  the  mind,  should  obtain  that  name. 

But  aside  from  further  justification  of  the  term  it  is  most 


140  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

important  to  observe  the  specific  fimctious  ascribed  to  reason, 
and  to  compare  them  with  those  of  impulse  and  instinct.  We 
have  already  indicated  very  clearly  that  they  are  complex, 
though  they  act  together.  The  first  of  these  functions  may  be 
called  seIf-conscious7iess,  or  deliheratlve  consciousness,  in  distinc- 
tion from  the  unreflecting  consciousness  of  impulse  or  passion 
and  the  merely  concomitant  consciousness  of  instinct.  We  do 
not  mean  consciousness  of  self  in  its  technical  philosophic  sense, 
but  the  reflective  turn  of  mind  which  stops  to  consider  whether 
the  course  oflered  the  will  is  the  right  one  or  not.  This  is  a 
function  that  will  overcome  both  the  recklessness  of  passion  and 
the  automatism  of  instinct.  Amid  the  temptations  of  dis- 
honesty, of  injustice,  of  intemperance,  of  voluptuous  habits,  of 
greed  and  ambition,  and  of  all  other  moral  distortions,  this  dis- 
position to  deliberate  and  reflect  upon  the  possibilities  of  self  is 
the  first  condition  of  restraining  and  directing  either  the 
strength  or  the  caprice  of  desire.  We  may  regard  its  dynamic 
quality  as  of  the  nature  of  desire  itself,  but  directed  to  a  differ- 
ent object  than  that  of  passionate  desire,  and  modified  by  the 
cool  and  reflective  agency  of  reason.  But  whether  we  choose  to 
regard  it  as  a  higher  desire,  or  as  a  distinct  and  independent 
function,  its  essence  is  one  of  self-conscious  reflection  in  the  first 
stage,  a  deliberative  inhibition  upon  impulse  and  instinct,  grow- 
ing out  of  better  knowledge  and  experience,  and  utilizing  tlie 
memory  of  past  consequences  in  similar  emergencies  to  act  with 
foresight,  prudence,  self-sacrifice,  and  it  may  be  conscientious- 
ness, in  the  future.  This  first  characteristic,  however,  distin- 
guishes reason  more  particularly  from  passion,  whicli  may  be 
conscious  but  not  deliberative,  than  it  does  from  instinct,  whose 
chief  (quality  is  persistence  and  strength  wliethcr  conscious  or  not. 
It  is,  therefore,  the  second  function  of  reason  wliich  distin- 
guishes it  more  clearly  from  instinct.  Instinct  does  not  delib- 
erate;  but  if  it  did  it  would  l)e  reason,  and  if  it  were  only 
accompanied  by  deliberation,  this  i)rocess  would  avail  nothing 
by  virtue  of  the  [)nority  and  superior  nionicntum  of  instinct. 
Tbe  force  of  instinct,  as  usually  conceived  and  delined,  lies  in  its 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  141 

not  being  conscious,  or  clearly  conscious  of  its  own  end,  or  the 
direction  of  its  impulsion.  But  this  second  function  of  reason 
supplies  this  very  desideratum.  Its  object  can  be  truly  called 
an  end.  Reason  knows  ivhy  it  acts  and  what  means  it  must 
employ  to  attain  its  ends.  It  is  not  only  conscious  of  what  is 
going  on,  but  is  conscious  of  the  destiny  of  its  action  and  can 
direct  it  to  that  result.  Impulse  lives  for  the  present,  though 
conscious,  and  takes  no  account  of  experience  or  of  possible  con- 
sequences. Instinct  is  adjusted  to  remoter  ends,  of  which  it  can 
give  no  account,  and  employs  means  whose  fiill  significance  it 
does  not  know.  But  reason  utilizes  experience  and  is  conscious 
of  both  immediate  and  remoter  ends,  and  thereby  acquires  for 
conduct  the  title  of  intelligent,  and  when  it  contains  a  course  of 
action  on  the  ground  of  its  imperative  worth,  it  adds  moral  to 
intelligent  quality. 

A  third  characteristic  of  reason  as  a  function  in  the  direction 
of  conduct  is  its  power  of  adjustability.  In  this  it  is  superior  to 
both  impulse  and  instinct.  Impulse,  we  found,  would  require  a 
world  without  any  unity  and  mthout  any  connection  between 
immediate  and  remote  consequences  in  order  that  the  subject 
might  even  survive  in  it.  It  is,  therefore,  wholly  unadjusted  to 
a  fixed  order,  but  only  to  a  changeable  one.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  found  instinct  to  be  adjusted  to  a  constant  environment  and 
out  of  harmony  with  a  variable  one.  Xow,  it  is  the  nature  of 
environment  to  be  partly  constant  and  partly  variable.  Some 
of  the  world's  forces,  be  they  physical  or  social,  are  more  or  less 
permanent,  or  at  least  so  articulated  as  to  work  toward  or  to 
favor  a  common  end.  The  best  life  requires  such  adaptation, 
"self-control,  and  sacrifice  as  will  guide  the  subject  through  many 
a  conflict  to  the  ceaseless  purpose  running  through  the  ages. 
Other  influences  are  constantly  changing ;  the  seasons,  the 
climate,  the  character  of  the  soil,  industrial  and  social  condi- 
tions, age,  health,  knowledge,  taste,  and  a  thousand  other  ex- 
ternal agencies  are  changing  from  time  to  time,  varying  a  nuin's 
interests  and  duties,  with  every  locality,  age,  or  circumstance. 
All  these  require  adjustability,  and  as  environment  is  neither 


142  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

^vholly  constant  nor  wholly  variable,  the  highest  development 
requires  a  capacity  for  flexible  adjustment.  This  is  precisely 
what  reason  supplies.  It  is  the  power  of  adjustment  to  environ- 
ment as  a  whole,  at  least  so  far  as  that  environment  comes  within 
the  ken  of  consciousness.  It  modifies  conduct  when  the  varia- 
tion of  conditions  nullifies  the  obligation  or  removes  the  expe- 
dience of  old  laws  and  habits,  and  it  holds  the  will  to  a  regular 
and  constant  life  Avhen  passion  might  lead  it  to  ignore  the 
eternal.  Eeason  is  thus  adjustment  to  both  aspects  of  environ- 
ment. It  makes  rational  concessions  to  change  and  to  difference 
of  circumstances,  while  it  is  unyielding  when  remoter  good 
requires  the  sacrifice  of  an  immediate  pleasure.  It  thus  shows 
its  freedom  and  independence  in  both  directions.  It  does  not 
yield  to  every  outward  and  capricious  stimulus,  and  it  does  not 
blindly  follow  in  the  line  of  habit  and  instinct  when  survival 
and  development  require  adjustment.  Hence  we  may  compare 
it  with  the  other  motives  to  action  by  remarking  either  how  it 
supplants  them  or  how  it  adds  reflective  and  deliberative  con- 
sciousness to  both  of  them,  giving  it  power  to  resist  impulsive 
adjustment  to  the  irregularities  of  life  and  to  modify  the 
mechanical  fatalism  of  instinct.  Impulse  represents  the  pre- 
dominance of  external  influence  and  change  in  the  determination 
of  conduct,  freedom  being  found  only  in  accepting  the  offer  of 
gratification.  On  the  other  hand,  instinct  represents  the 
predominance  of  spontaneity  or  internal  influence,  freedom 
consisting  only  in  the  exemption  from  external  compulsion. 
But  reason  is  the  adjustment  of  both  of  these  conditions,  giving 
greater  independence  of  external  environment  and  less  fiitalism 
to  organic  functions  and  internal  tendencies.  It  is,  therefore,  the 
j)()'u\t  where  all  the  conflicting  forces  of  the  mind  meet  and 
attain  tlicir  unity,  completing  the  adjustment  of  the  individual, 
which  is  so  important  for  his  development  and  perfection. 

This  rational  nature  as  a  motive  and  regulative  function  takes 
two  forms,  as  already  indicated,  rrudeiice  or  Interest  and  Con- 
S(nence  or  the  Sense  of  Duty.  Tlic  difl'erencc  between  them 
requires  to  be  carefully  stated. 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  1 43 

(a)  Prudence. — Literally  understood,  prudence  is  simply  fore- 
sight. It  is  the  function  of  reason  which  has  been  most  fully 
described  as  looking  before  and  after,  taking  account  of  expe- 
rience and  consequences,  and  directing  the  agent  through  the 
conflicts  of  desire  to  a  course  of  conduct  which  mil  best  serve 
his  interests  in  the  long  run.  A  man  is  prudent  when  he  saves 
money  against  scarcity,  famine,  sickness,  and  old  age,  or  any  con- 
tingency in  which  he  might  be  cut  oflE*  from  self-support.  He  is 
prudent  when  he  resists  the  temptation  to  a  fit  of  intemperance 
or  debauchery  in  order  to  preserve  his  health.  He  is  prudent 
when  he  protects  all  his  resources  against  waste  and  loss.  He  is 
prudent  again  when  he  sacrifices  an  immediate  interest  for  a  re- 
mote and  greater  one ;  when  he  prefers  the  respect  of  the  commu- 
nity to  its  iudifierence  or  dislike  ;  when  he  prefers  honesty  for  the 
sake  of  its  gain  ;  when  he  accepts  an  insult  and  injury  rather  than 
conduct  a  futile  quest  for  justice.  In  all  this  the  agent  acts 
with  reference  to  the  greatest  good  to  be  obtained  for  himself. 
But  he  does  not  sacrifice  his  own  good  to  that  of  others.  He 
may  sacrifice  something,  but  it  will  be  with  more  than  a  com- 
pensation in  return.  A  man  may  pay  a  debt  at  a  sacrifice 
before  it  matures  only  to  establish  his  credit,  not  to  fulfill 
an  unconditional  obligation.  He  may  even  sacrifice  a  desire 
and  act  for  the  good  of  others,  but  it  will  u  t  be  with  the  good 
of  others  in  view.  He  will  have  primary  reference  to  the 
compensation  to  be  received  for  the  sacrifice.  Prudence  is, 
therefore,  looking  to  one's  own  interest,  though  seeing  that 
no  friction  occurs  with  the  good  of  others.  It  is  thus  pri- 
marily and  only  individualistic  in  its  motive,  though  it  may 
be  objectively  altruistic ;  that  is,  in  its  effects.  But  it  does  not 
take  on  the  character  of  obligation,  or  a  desire  to  limit  one's  own 
freedom  and  action  in  behalf  of  the  welfare  or  the  equal  freedom 
of  others,  and  hence  is  not  marked  by  the  sense  of  morality,  or  of 
right  and  wrong,  as  distinguished  from  good  and  bad.  "  Inter- 
est," says  one  writer,  "  means  what  is  good  for  an  individual  con- 
sidered from  his  own  point  of  view,  and  mthout  regard  to  similar 
claims  of  other  individuals.     It  is  the  maximum  of  happiness  or 


144  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

satisfaction  which  he  can  secure  under  his  conditions.  By 
*  maximum  happiness '  is  meant  that  distribution  of  satisfaction 
or  of  energies  which  produce  them'  any  deviation  from  Avhich  on 
either  side  implies  a  less  fidlness  of  life.  Interest,  though  a  dif- 
ferent conception  from  right  or  [moral]  goodness,  is  therefore  a 
conception  of  the  same  rank  or  order.  In  the  first  place  interest 
is  not  mere  momentary  satisfaction,  but  implies  a  reference  both 
forwards  and  backwards  to  the  whole  range  of  a  person's  wants. 
It  is  something  permanent,  something  which  implies  orderly  ar- 
rangement." But  whatever  its  results  and  whatever  adjust- 
ment to  others'  rights  and  interests  the  exercise  of  prudence  in- 
volves, its  motive  and  primary  reference  is  to  the  individual 
that  practices  it. 

This  conception  of  conduct  does  not  reach  the  stage  of  moral- 
ity proper,  or  perfect  virtue,  for  the  reason  that  it  does  not  aim 
equally  at  the  good  of  others.  It  is  conduct  having  a  different 
and  a  higher  merit  than  passion  and  instinct,  simply  because  it  is 
intelligent  and  conserves  life  under  complex  conditions  better  than 
these  motives  can  possibly  do.  It  is  conduct  that  is  careful  not 
to  conflict  with  morality,  but  does  not  aim  at  realizing  purposely 
either  the  subjective  or  the  ol)jective  aspect  of  it.  It  will  con- 
form to  objective  morality,  though  mainly  in  its  negative  aspect 
of  not  doing  positive  harm.  It  nevertheless  contains  an 
object  which  may  be  called  moral  and  ought  to  be  respected  as 
such,  namely,  the  higher  possibilities  as  against  the  temptation 
of  passion  and  momentary  satisfaction,  and  larger  freedom  than 
is  possible  in  the  mechanical  fatuity  of  instinct.  But  it  d(»cs 
not  reach  the  level  of  conscience,  which  moves  the  will  by  other 
considerations  than  interest  alone  and  transfigures  character 
as  well  as  conduct. 

(b)  Conscience. — We  shall  consider  only  one  as])ect  of  con- 
science at  present:  a  detailed  analysis  of  it  will  come  up  in  its 
proper  jjlace.  Here  we  are  concerned  with  its  motive  function 
and  the  (piality  wliicli  it  bestows  upon  volition.  It  represents 
inon;  spccidcally  tlie  moral  function  of  reason  and  defines  the 
con.straint  of  the  .sense  of  right  and  tluty  upon  the  will,  im])clling 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  145 

it  to  respect  an  uncouditional  ideal.  Prudence  is  mainly  insight 
into  the  most  expedient  of  a  series  of  conflicting  alternatives  and 
simply  changes  the  objective,  but  not  the  subjective,  direction  of 
desire.  On  the  other  hand,  conscience  is  mainly  propulsion, 
combined  with  a  sense  of  rightness  and  an  entire  subordination 
of  personal  to  general  good.  It  does  not  admit  free  alterna- 
tives, but  selects  one  course  as  having  a  value  and  importance 
which  not  only  put  all  others  into  the  shade,  but  exclude  them 
from  consideration.  It  may  involve  the  same  external  actions 
as  prudence  and  the  same  objective  results,  but  its  motive  is  not 
iudividualistic,  while  it  looks  at  the  result  as  having  a  value 
apart  from  the  mere  interest  of  the  subject  and  sets  it  up  as  an 
object  of  reverence  and  of  unconditional  duty. 

The  part  which  conscience  plays  in  morality,  besides  overcom- 
ing passion  and  personal  desire,  is  an  important  one.  It  subor- 
dinates individual  action  to  the  whole  consciously.  Prudence 
merely  sees  that  it  does  not  come  into  conflict  with  universal  in- 
terest, while  conscience  sees  that  it  serves  this  end  directly.  It 
will  even  sacrifice  an  individual  good  for  that  of  others,  the 
family,  the  tribe,  or  the  state.  It  particularly  insists  upon 
action  according  to  law,  a  law  of  will  as  well  as  of  results.  Its 
form  is  regularity  and  its  motive  a  command.  In  the  former 
quality  it  opposes  impulse  and  resembles  instinct,  but  in  the 
latter  it  transcends  both  of  them.  It  gives  sjiecial  sanctity  to  the 
will  or  volition,  though  it  may  not  modify  the  nature  of  results. 
It  is  on  this  account  that  so  many  moralists  have  exalted  the 
motive  above  everything  else  in  right  conduct.  Prudence  may 
have  something  of  caprice  in  it  by  virtue  of  the  necessity  for  a 
larger  adaptation  to  a  changing  environment,  and  of  the  con- 
stant reference  to  self.  It  is,  in  other  words,  more  in  danger  of 
transgression,  as  it  is  only  the  modification  and  control  of 
impulse  without  moralizing  its  object.  On  the  other  hand,  con- 
science, as  a  motive,  has  much  if  not  all  of  the  constancy  of 
instinct  and  does  for  the  character  of  the  subject  what  correct- 
ness of  judgment  does  for  the  result  of  conduct.  It  is  not  only  a 
conscious  choice  of  the  right  result,  but  it  is  aimincj  at  that  re- 


146  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

suit  on  its  own  account,  whatever  reference  it  may  have  to  the  sub- 
ject itself.  It  ^^■ill  not  conflict  Avith  interest  in  tlie  long  run, 
though  it  sets  aside  an  immediate  one.  But  it  does  not  look 
primarily  to  this  interest.  It  regards  the  action  and  the  end  as 
having  an  intrinsic  worth  imposing  a  universal  and  absolute 
obligation,  and  so  imposes  a  subjective  law  of  duty  upon  the  will, 
while  prudence  is  much  more  under  the  objective  law  of  circum- 
stances. The  subjective  law  of  prudence  is  personal  good,  that  of 
conscience  is  impersonal  good.  The  objective  law  of  prudence  is 
adaptation,  that  of  conscience  is  self-realization,  the  attainment 
of  an  ideal  independent  of  circumstances.  Morality  from  this 
source  will  be  perfect  where  it  is  accomj'yanied  by  correct  judg- 
ment a.s  to  means  and  ends.  Imperfection  will  arise  only  from 
mistaken  knowledge  and  not  from  a  perverted  will,  where  the  law 
of  duty  is  observed,  and  hence  conscience  as  a  motive  simply 
adds  the  moralization  of  the  agent  to  all  other  considerations  of 
the  good ;  or  to  put  it  in  terms  of  conceptions  already  distin- 
guished, it  combines  virtue  with  the  good  where  knowledge  is  not 
defective.  The  individual  who  exercises  it  is  admired,  not  for 
his  being  a  means  to  an  end,  but  for  his  personality,  for  the 
intrinsic  excellence  of  a  life  or  action  according  to  the  law  of 
freedom,  of  duty,  and  of  ideal  attainment.  That  is  to  say,  con- 
science is  the  essence  of  morality  where  it  must  be  estimated 
in  terms  of  personality  or  good-will,  and  viewed  from  the  stand- 
point of  individual  worth  there  is  no  other  quality  which  stands 
so  high  in  the  estimation  of  the  world.  It  is,  therefore,  the  most 
fundamental  of  all  the  elements  that  make  uj)  virtue,  and  view- 
ing this  as  expressing  merely  a  quality  of  will,  conscience  is  all 
that  is  necessary  to  realize  it,  leaving  to  education  and  experi- 
ence the  work  of  bestowing  the  knowledge  necessary  for  securing 
correct  objective  results  when  the  will  is  good. 

In  analyzing  thus  the  functions  of  motives  in  morality  we 
determine  only  its  sulyoctive  side,  and  so  the  excellence  or 
virtue  of  tlie  ULrrnt.  IWit  in  cuininon  conception  morality 
contains  more  than  virtue.  It  is  the  g(jodness  also  of  some- 
thing else   than    the  mere  will.     The  motives  may  determine 


ELEMENTARY  PRINCIPLES  147 

the  character  and  worth  of  the  agent.  But  they  do  not  consti- 
tute the  quality  of  any  other  data  which  are  essential  to  com- 
plete morality,  though  in  a  world  of  free  agents  they  are  the 
most  important  elements  to  reckon  upon  as  security  for  regular- 
ity and  law,  which  are  the  first  principles  of  character  wherever 
consciousness  is  concerned.  The  objective  elements  and  their 
functions,  however,  are  determined  by  other  considerations  than 
the  value  of  good-will.  To  them  we  immediately  turn,  and  can 
dismiss  them  xQxy  briefly. 

2d.  The  Act. — The  act  we  have  already  divided  into  the 
subjective  action  and  the  objective  action ;  in  other  words,  the 
choice  and  volition  for  the  one  and  the  external  movement  for 
the  other.  The  act  as  a  whole,  of  course,  must  contain  both 
aspects,  but  each  has  entirely  different  functions  in  relation  to 
moral  judgment.  The  internal  act  or  the  choice  and  volition 
are  the  index  of  character,  and  so  are  an  expression  of  the  sub- 
jective side  of  morality  as  discussed  in  the  function  of  conscience. 
It  may  be  a  causal  link  in  the  series  terminating  in  the  result, 
but  it  determines  constitutively  nothing  but  the  quality  of  the 
will,  and  not  the  quality  of  the  result.  Hence  it  may  be  re- 
garded in  this  respect  as  doing  the  same  as  the  motive,  and  dis- 
missed from  farther  consideration.  But  the  objective  or  exter- 
nal act  is  different.  Taken  alone  it  can  have  neither  merit  nor 
demerit.  Its  moral  quality  is  purely  relative — relative  to  the 
result  or  end  to  which  it  is  directed.  Its  function  is  purely 
instrumental  or  dynamic,  namely,  nothing  but  a  means  to  an 
end.  Whatever  value  the  end  has,  the  means  will  have,  and 
whatever  demerit  the  end  or  result,  so  with  the  means.  The 
physical  movements  in  an  act  of  justifiable  homicide  may  be  the 
same  as  in  a  case  of  unjus'tifiable  homicide,  and  yet  we  do  not 
place  our  judgments  in  the  same  attitude  regarding  both  results. 
The  quality  of  the  act  is  measured  by  the  quality  of  the  end, 
and  morally  considered  it  can  have  no  other  quality.  This  is 
perhaps  a  truism,  but  there  have  been  schools  of  philosophers 
who  have  spoken  as  if  they  meant  to  ascribe  morality  or  immo- 
rality to  actions  which  can  be  considered  as  nothing  more  nor 


148  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

less  than  a  means  to  an  end.  They  in  reality  spoke  of  the 
whole  complex  plieuomenou  involving  the  purpose,  action,  and 
consequence.  But  opponents  eagerly  interpreted  their  language 
literally,  while  it  has  been  the  fault  of  the  human  race  generally 
to  speak  of  action  in  the  abstract  as  if  it  were  discussing  the 
concrete  case  involving  more  than  mere  action.  Hence  we  find 
homicide,  theft,  inveracity,  injustice,  intemperance,  imprudence, 
etc.,  condemned  'without  reference  to  consequences,  and  their 
opposites  approved  without  reference  to  the  same.  In  fact,  not 
a  single  crime  in  the  calendar  of  evils  can  be  condemned  without 
reference  to  its  consequences.  Its  action,  apart  from  the  voli- 
tion of  the  subject,  is  nothing  more  than  physical  motion,  from 
which  those  very  advocates  of  absolute  morality  are  so 
strenuous  to  exclude  the  attributes  of  either  moral  or  im- 
moral. It  possesses  nothing  but  causal  or  instrumental 
quality,  and  is  deplored  or  admired  according  as  the  con- 
.sequences  are. 

3d.  The  End. — The  end  as  already  defined  is  the  result 
aimed  at.  It  is  this  alone,  barring  the  question  of  freedom, 
which  determines  the  responsibility  and  the  morality  of  the  agent, 
but  not  all  the  morality  of  the  act,  if  that  term  is  to  include  the 
objective  results  independent  of  volition,  and  assuming  that  bet- 
ter knowledge  may  enable  all  results  to  come  within  the  ken  of 
the  agent.  Whatever  the  end  so  will  the  agent  and  the  act  be, 
the  agent  because  the  end  is  a  part  of  the  motive,  and  the 
act  because  the  end  is  tlie  result. 

4th.  The  Result  or  Consequence. — So  far  as  this  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  end  aimed  at,  and  so  far  as  it  is  not  known  to  be 
connected  with  the  end,  it  can  only  determine  the  objective  char- 
acter of  conduct,  and  has  no  reference  to  the  morality  of  the 
agent.  But  as  long  as  it  comes  within  the  range  of  possible 
knowledge  and  can  be  known  by  cxi)erience  to  be  involved  in  a 
given  act,  it  will  be  subject  matter  for  ethical  discussion,  as  being 
involved  in  the  olyective  qualities  of  morality  as  a  whole,  but  is 
not  a  part  of  virtue.  The  function  of  consequences,  therefore, 
in  ethical  doctrine  is  to  determine  the  complementary  asjiect  of 


ELEMENT AR Y  PRINCIPLES  149 

the  good-will  in  considering  the  complex  phenomenon  which 
passes  as  moral  or  immoral. 

VIL  CONCLUSION.— The  conclusion  of  this  chapter  merely 
calls  fresh  attention  to  the  complexity  of  the  phenomena  with 
which  we  have  to  deal.  Morality,  as  understood  by  the  common 
mind,  is  not  a  simple  thing.  Now  it  describes  only  a  quality  of 
will  apart  from  consequences  actually  occurring,  and  now  it 
describes  actions  leading  to  avoidable  consequences,  if  known, 
and  again  it  describes  the  complex  whole  comprehending  all 
these  elements.  Our  duty  as  students  is  first  to  understand  the 
difference  between  the  points  of  view  involved  and  not  to  regard 
as  contradictories  conceptions  which  are  merely  complementary 
factors  of  a  complex  whole.  Each  point  of  view  with  its  concep- 
tion in  those  limits  may  be  correct  and  should  be  accorded  fair 
consideration  on  that  ground. 

Again,  we  have  discussed  the  subjects  of  morality  and  con- 
science without  reference  to  any  particular  theory  about  it. 
Some  conceive  both  as  necessarily  opposed  to  the  utilitarian  posi- 
tion. This  may  be  true,  or  it  may  not.  I  certainly  do  not 
think  it  necessary,  however,  to  define  either  of  them  as  excluding 
utilitarian  conceptions.  In  considering  conscience  as  a  motive 
function,  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  say  what  its  object  is, 
whether  pleasure,  perfection,  law,  obedience,  or  what  not.  It  may 
have  any  or  all  of  these  for  its  object.  Hence,  in  understanding 
the  function  of  conscience,  in  morality  we  may  consider  only  its 
mode  of  operation  and  determine  its  proper  object  afterward. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    FREEDOM    OF    THE    WILL. 

/.  INTRODUCTORY.— The  freedom  of  the  will  has  been 
affirnieJ  to  be  au  essential  couditiou  of  morality  and  responsi- 
bility, and  we  must  now  consider  whether  this  doctrine  is  true  or 
not,  or  in  what  sense  it  is  true,  if  it  be  so.  The  controversy  in 
modern  times,  and  especially  since  the  acceptance  of  the  doctrine 
of  evolution,  has  been  a  very  Avarm  one.  Perhaps  it  Avas  equally, 
so  at  earlier  periods  if  we  are  to  judge  from  the  theories  of  men 
like  Hobbes,  Collins,  Hume,  Spinoza,  and  their  opponents.  But 
aside  from  the  historical  interest  of  the  problem,  it  has  consid- 
erable practical  importance  in  the  affairs  of  every-day  life, 
individual  and  social.  In  the  first  place  free  agency,  whatever 
it  may  mean,  is  commonly  accepted  as  conditioning  responsi- 
bility ;  that  is,  the  distribution  of  praise  and  blame,  and  through 
this  the  right  of  punishment.  It  is  believed  that  if  we  are  not 
free  agents,  actions  can  neither  be  praised  nor  blamed,  but  only 
admired  or  disliked,  and  that  no  system  of  punishment  is  justi- 
fiable unless  we  are  the  free  causes  of  our  own  actions.  In  the 
courts  we  are  in  the  habit  of  excusing  men  when  it  is  shown 
that  their  conduct  is  compulsory  and  involuntary.  jNIauiacs  and 
imbeciles  are  not  punished  for  criminal  actions.  No  measures 
are  taken  to  apply  to  them  the  ordinary  method  of  discipline  and 
correction,  and  it  is  simply  l^ecause  we  arc  not  in  the  habit  of 
regarding  them  as  responsible,  while  they  arc  often  spoken  of  as 
not  being  free  agents.  Slaves  are  denied  freedom,  and  all 
persons  in  like  subservience  to  the  will  of  others  are  said  not  to 
be  free  in  their  actions.  Their  nuisters  or  superiors  arc  treated 
as  resi)onsil)le  for  the  conduct  enjoined  upon  them.  Reflex  and 
automatic  actions  arc  regarded  as  necessary  or  not  free,  and  so 

l.JU 


THE  FREED03I  OF  THE  WILL  151 

with  any  action  connected  with  our  physical  person  and  not 
willed  by  us,  because  they  are  initiated  by  antecedents  which  are 
beyond  our  control,  and  which  leave  no  other  alternative  in  the 
case  open  to  choice.  The  person  is  in  no  way  praised  or  lilamed 
for  such  actions,  and  punishment  to  prevent  them  is  absurd. 
Hence,  to  put  the  whole  matter  most  briefly,  wherever  we  use 
the  expression,  "  This  act  is  not  free/'  we  mean  to  take  it  wholly 
out  of  the  category  of  moral  actions,  subject  to  punishment,  and 
to  place  it  among  those  which,  like  physical  actions,  are  not 
amenable  to  any  moral  judgment  whatever.  The  consequences 
of  denying  freedom,  therefore,  seem  to  be  very  far-reaching. 
They  seem  to  involve  the  whole  moral  and  social  constitution  of 
society,  and  also  even  the  defensive  action  of  the  individual.  I 
do  not  intend  this  statement  of  consequences  to  be  taken  at 
present  as  an  argument  for  freedom,  because  it  may  be  that  they 
will  have  to  be  accepted,  and  social  institutions  modified  to  suit 
the  facts.  But  they  may  be  pointed  out  in  order  to  obtain  a 
clear  conception  of  the  problem  before  us.  They  are  necessary 
for  the  purpose  of  sho^\ing  that  Ave  cannot  take  the  conception 
of  freedom  in  the  abstract,  or  out  of  all  connection  with  its 
concrete  relations  to  social  phenomena  and  institutions,  and 
decide  whether  it  is  valid  or  not,  and  at  the  same  time  imagine 
that  these  implications  are  untouched  by  our  conclusions.  We 
cannot  give  up  the  conditions  of  certain  facts  and  yet  maintain 
the  validity  of  those  facts.  We  must  either  defend  the  freedom 
of  the  will  or  give  up  the  legitimacy  of  the  phenomena  supposed 
to  depend  upon  it. 

But  it  is  to  be  remarked,  on  the  other  hand,  that  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  excusable  confusion  on  this  subject  due  to  the 
equivocal  meaning  of  the  terms  and  propositions  in  the  contro- 
versy. Neither  party  gives  sufficient  attention  to  clearness 
and  to  definition  of  data  in  the  problem.  One  party  uses  freedom 
in  one  sense  and  the  other  in  another  sense,  and  both  parties 
use  it  in  different  senses  in  different  connections.  It  is  therefore 
no  wonder  that  there  is  controversy  and  confusion  in  the  matter. 
Hence  we  must  assert  emphatically  that  the  most  important  step 


152*  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

in  discussing  the  problem  is  the  clear  definition  of  the  question 
or  questions  at  issue.  This  requires  a  careful  examination  of 
what  is  meant  by  the  several  theories  of  volition  and  by  the  term 
freedom.  The  question  whether  we  are  free  or  not  depends 
wholly  upon  the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  term,  and  there  is  no 
use  to  either  advocate  or  oppose  any  doctrine  regarding  it  until 
we  understand  ourselves  and  the  conce^^tions  involved.  We 
shall  therefore  proceed  to  state  carefully  the  fundamental  ele- 
ments of  the  problem  and  reduce  it  to  its  simplest  terms. 

II.  ELEMENTS  OF  THE  PROBLEM.— There  are  two  things 
to  be  analyzed  in  the  matter  before  our  attention :  they  are  the 
conception  of  free  action  and  the  conception  of  the  theories  re- 
garding it.  When  we  have  obtained  a  clear  idea  of  these  we  can 
then  pronounce  judgment  upon  them  one  way  or  the  other. 

1st.  Uses  of  the  Term  Freedom. — There  are  three  general 
and  distinct  meanings  of  the  term  freedom,  and  all  with  entirely 
different  implications.  "We  shall  call  them  Liberty,  Spontcmeity, 
and  VcUeity,  and  explain  each  in  its  order.  Liberty  and  free- 
dom are  often  used  interchangeably,  but  there  is  a  difference  in 
some  of  their  connections,  describing  what  we  wish  to  emphasize 
here,  and  hence  we  wish  for  the  sake  of  clearness  and  conveni- 
ence to  use  the  term  for  a  special  purpose.  We  might  use  the 
phrase  "  physico-political  freedom  "  instead,  which  is  exactly  what 
we  mean  to  express  by  liberty,  but  it  is  too  cumbersome,  and  as 
good  authority  as  well  as  frequent  usage  stands  for  the  employ- 
ment of  the  term  to  denote  what  can  be  expressed  by  pliysico- 
political  liberty,  we  shall  do  little  violence  to  habit  if  we  some- 
what restrict  the  term  for  important  purposes.  We  may  seem  a 
little  arbitrary,  but  if  our  definition  of  it  is  kept  in  mind,  rather 
than  its  frequent  identification  with  freedom,  there  will  be  no 
difficulty  with  it,  and  at  the  same  time  we  shall  have  a  clear 
and  convenient  conception  to  be  distinguished  from  the  other 
two  kinds  of  freedom.  AVc  shall  therefore  take  up  and  define 
each  one  in  its  order. 

1.  LiBEKTV. — T/ibcrty,  as  here  conceived  and  in  its  restricted 
import,  we  shall  define  as  exemption  from  external  restraint.    This 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  153 

restraint  may  be  either  physical  or  social,  the  latter  being  meant 
to  include  all  political  restrictions  upon  human  action.  We  call 
a  person  free,  or  assert  that  he  has  liberty,  when  external  forces 
either  do  not  determine  his  action  or  do  not  determine  the  cir- 
cumstances limiting  the  alternatives  between  which  he  has  to 
choose.  Thus,  a  man  in  prison  is  not  free,  or  has  lost  his  liberty. 
A  man  who  can  do  as  he  pleases  without  suffering  a  penalty  for 
it,  is  said  to  have  his  liberty,  or  to  be  free.  Seasons  and  climate 
limit  a  man's  liberty  in  the  matter  of  wearing  clothes  ;  he  is  not 
free  to  go  without  them  in  any  sense  that  he  can  escape  the  conse- 
qilences.  A  slave  is  said  not  to  be  free,  in  which  Ave  do  not  mean 
that  he  cannot  possibly  do  as  he  pleases,  or  that  he  cannot  help 
obeying  his  master,  but  that  he  must  do  so  at  his  risk,  that  he  is 
liable  to  certain  consequences  for  following  his  spontaneous  de- 
sires. We  give  him  his  liberty  when  we  remove  the  restrictions 
which  prevent  natural  and  desirable  action  on  his  part,  and  force 
upon  him  a  choice  which  he  would  not  otherwise  make.  All  men 
are  hemmed  in  by  some  such  restraints,  either  physical  or  social. 
Climate,  gravitation,  seasons,  geographical  conditions,  political  in- 
stitutions, economic  conditions,  and  a  thousand  other  influences 
are  at  work  to  limit  the  satisfaction  of  desire.  To  that  extent  we 
can  say  that  we  are  not  free,  whereby  we  mean  merely  that  we 
cannot  do  as  we  please  without  incurring  disagreeable  conse- 
quences. Hence,  freedom  or  liberty,  used  to  describe  exemption 
from  these  restraints,  means  only  a  condition  in  which  ive  act  ac- 
cording to  our  natural  desires.  The  term  is  used  most  frequently 
to  describe  a  political  condition — political  liberty,  whereby  we 
mean  exemption  from  the  laws,  customs,  and  restraints  which  put 
one  man  in  subjection  to  Iha  will  of  others.  But  in  this  sense  no 
man  is  absolutely  free,  every  one  is  under  some  restrictions,  and 
perhaps  ought  to  be.  They  do  not  compel  him  to  act  in  a  given 
way,  but  make  the  alternatives  so  unpleasant  that  none  except 
the  permitted  course  will  probably  be  chosen.  In  this  sense 
freedom  or  liberty  is  a  privilege  rather  than  a  poiver,  a  privilege 
to  act  with  impunity  rather  than  the  faculty  of  alternative  ac- 
tion.    Thus  a  man  is  not  at  liberty  to  commit  murder  and  escape 


154  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  risks  of  punishment,  but  he  has  the  power  to  commit  the 
murder  and  to  accept  the  penalty,  or  not  to  commit  it  and  thus  to 
be  free  from  risk.  Freedom,  then,  as  liberty  is  simply  exemption 
from  restraint  or  limitation.  \ye  take  up  next  the  second  mean- 
ing of  the  term. 

2.  Spontaneity. — Spontaneity  may  be  itechnically  defined 
as  subjective  causation,  or  the  origination  of  one's  own  act.  It 
might  be  called  autonomy  or  self-initiative  were  it  not  that 
sometimes  these  terms  are  used  synonymously  with  freedom  in 
the  third  sense  where  consciousness  and  deliberation  are  involved. 
But  I  do  not  yet  wish  to  condition  spontaneity  by  deliberation, 
or  even  consciousness.  As  here  used  the  term  simply  defines  self- 
motion  or  activity,  whether  conscious  or  not,  as  contrasted  with 
mechanical  action  Avhich  is  not  originated  by  the  subject  in 
which  it  occurs,  or  at  least,  is  never  supposed  to  do  so.  All 
physical  motion  or  action  is  said  to  be  necessitated,  because  the 
body  in  motion  is  supposed  to  be  incapable  of  causing  its  own 
motion.  It  is  inert,  and  whatever  activity  it  manifests  is  trans- 
mitted to  it  from  without,  unless  we  describe  its  reaction  and 
resistance  to  its  own  powers.  But  movement  and  its  transmis- 
sion to  other  bodies  cannot,  so  far  as  human  ex2:)erience  goes,  be 
originated  by  matter  in  itself,  but  must  be  received  from  with- 
out, and  if  any  external  body  or  cause  act  on  another,  the  effect 
is  inevital^le  and  necessary.  It  is  neither  conscious  nor  one  of 
two  possible  alternatives  under  the  same  conditions.  But  if  the 
agent  or  subject  originate  any  action  of  itself  and  without  stim- 
ulus from  tlie  outside  it  would  certainly  be  a  self-initiated  act,  a 
spontaneous  creation  of  its  own  power,  not  a  creation  of  a  sub- 
stantive thing,  but  of  an  act,  event,  or  phenomenon.  Moreover, 
even  if  a  stiiiiuhis  docs  act  on  a  subject,  and  tlie  eilect  is  wholly 
different  from  a  mechanical  one,  something  must  be  attributed  to 
the  subject  rather  than  to  tlic  stimulus.  Thus,  if  I  see  a  fire  and 
run  to  watcli  the  process  of  extinction,  my  action  can  hardly  be 
compared  to  the  effect  of  one  l»iHi:inl-l):iIl  upon  anotlier  when 
struck.  I  originate;  the  action  of  running,  tliougli  the  sight  of  fire 
is  necessary  to  explain  the  occasion  and  the  motive  of  it.     Spon- 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  155 

taneity  thus  expresses  a  power  in  contrast  witli  inertia,  and 
denotes  capacity  to  originate  action.  Tins,  of  course,  is  con- 
scious. Not  to  seek  for  analogies  of  it  in  the  resistance  of 
material  bodies,  and  their  modifying  influence  on  other  bodies 
when  struck,  it  is  probable  that  automatic  and  instinctive 
actions  ai'e  the  first  types  of  spontaneity  in  organic  life.  They 
are  certainly  not  caused  by  any  agency  without  the  person 
or  subject  of  them.  We  may  claim  that  they  have  their 
stimulus  in  the  organism  and  so  far  must  be  classed  with- 
ordinary  mechanical  actions,  and  I  do  not  care  to  dispute  this 
view.  But  they  are  certainly  not  the  necessary  effect  of  ex- 
ternal conditions  as  the  movement  of  one  billiard-ball  by  anofrher 
is.  They  belong  to  the  subject  and  the  conditions  of  its  nature. 
However,  it  is  not  necessary  to  push  the  application  of  the 
term  spontaneity  into  the  field  of  the  purely  unconscious.  It  is 
practically  admitted  to  be  a  fact  by  all  who  grant  the  existence  of 
conscious  action,  but  deny  that  a  man's  action  might  have  been 
otherwise  than  it  was.  Every  man  must  be  the  cause  of  his  own 
volitions;  otherwise  they  are  not  his  volitions  or  acts  at  all. 
If  I  move  my  arm  to  pick  up  my  pen,  it  is  not  the  pen  which 
"  caused "  the  act,  nor  is  it  my  surroundings,  the  physical 
objects  about  me.  If  they  produced  the  effect,  they  should  con- 
tinue to  do  so  as  long  as  they  are  about  me.  There  may  have 
been  "  reasons "  in  my  surroundings,  or  in  the  special  condi- 
tions under  which  I  am  placed  for  picking  up  my  pen,  but  "  rea- 
sons "  are  not  external  causes,  and  they  may  not  be  causes  at  all. 
Similarly,  if  I  steal,  the  act  arises  from  conditions  within  myself, 
not  from  tlie  action  of  external  objects ;  otherwise  every  con- 
scious agent  would  be  expected  to  steal  immediately  that  he  came 
near  the  same  olijects,  nay,  w^ould  be  forced  to  do  so.  It  might 
even  be  true  that  every  one  would  steal  under  the  same  "  condi- 
tions." But  these  conditions  would  have  to  be  internal;  for  it 
is  a  fact  that  the  sameness  of  external  conditions  does  not  issue 
in  the  same  results  with  different  persons.  Hence  the  only  way 
to  explain  the  difference  of  effect  is  to  refer  it  to  the  subjective 
conditions  and  nature  of  the  agent.     This  is  regarding  him  as 


156  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

tlie  cause  of  the  efiect  instead  of  referring  it  to  a  foreign  influ- 
ence. Now,  in  all  actions  rejiresenting  an  end,  a  conscious  pur- 
pose, the  subject  is  tlie  cause.  All  other  "  conditions  "  are  mere 
circumstances  or  occasions,  opportunities  wliicli  consciousness 
observes,  weighs,  and  measures.  In  the  sense,  then,  that  a  man 
is  the  cause  of  his  own  actions  we  can  ascribe  to  him  the  attri- 
bute of  spontaneity,  the  power  of  originating  himself  certain  acts, 
which  are  properly  called  volitions.  Freedom  is  used  to  describe 
this  phenomenon  in  order  to  name  a  fact  which  must  be  distin- 
guished from  mechanically  caused  events.  We  may  hold  that 
spontaneous  actions  cannot  have  been  otherwise,  if  we  like,  but 
they  are  not  produced  by  the  transmission  of  force,  as  in  the 
physical  world,  from  one  body  to  another.  They  originate  with 
the  subject  of  them.  Spontaneity  is  thus'  self-initiative,  whether 
we  choose  to  regard  it  as  conscious  or  unconscious,  and  is 
opposed  to  foreign  initiative.  It  is  self-movement  as  opposed  to 
inertia,  and  is  only  a  name  for  mental  causation  as  contrasted 
with  mechanical  causation.  This  will  be  as  true  under  a  mate- 
rialistic as  under  a  spiritualistic  pMlosophy. 

3.  Velleity. — Velleity  is  the  capacity  of  alternative  choice, 
or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  contrary  choice.  I  have  chosen 
the  term  from  the  medieval  Latin,  velleitas  (Latin  velle,  to  wish 
or  to  will)  in  order  to  distinguish,  as  nearly  all  writers  do,  med- 
ieval or  modern,  between  merely  spontaneously  caused  actions 
and  actions  that  might  have  been  otherwise,  conditions  being  the 
same.  AVhether  there  are  any  such  remains  still  to  be  deter- 
mined. But  we  certainly  have  a  conception  of  them,  and  often 
use  the  term  freedom  to  denote  them.  The  doctrines  of  responsi- 
bility and  punishment  certainly  assume  that  certain  actions  ought, 
and  therefore  could,  have  been  otherwise  tlian  tlioy  are,  that  the 
agent  could  have  chosen  the  right  as  well  as  the  \vn)ng.  If  they 
could  not  liave  been  otherwise,  it  seems  unreasonalile  to  act  toward 
the  agent  as  if  tlicy  could  have  Ijeeii  dillrreiit.  Punishment 
either  a.ssumes  that  this  is  i)ossil)lo  or  that  it  can  inodiiy  them 
afterward  and  prevent  this  re]Htiti<)n.  Hence  it  is  a  question 
whether,  ccjnditions   being  the  same,   the  power  of  alternative 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  157 

choice  exists.  But  it  is  this  Avhich  is  perhaps  more  frequently 
implied  by  freedom  than  the  first  two  meanings  when  speaking  of 
free  will.  We  are  not  ready,  however,  for  the  argument  on  one 
side  or  the  other.  Our  present  duty  is  only  to  fix  the  concep- 
tion of  freedom  as  velleity,  and  to  indicate  the  distinction  be- 
tween this  and  the  other  conception  expressed  by  the  same  term. 
There  is  a  peculiar  relation  existing  between  the  three.  In  the 
first  })lace,  liberty,  as  Ave  saw,  is  exemption  from  foreign  re- 
straint ;  velleity  does  not  require  any  such  exemption.  If  it 
exist  at  all,  it  may,  not,  must  not,  be  influenced  by  any  such  lim- 
itations whatever.  In  the  second  place,  spontaneity,  as  defined, 
is  subjective  causation,  but  velleity  must  inckide  this  and  adds 
to  it  the  capacity  of  alternative  choice.  He  who  can  act  other- 
wise than  he  does  on  any  occasion  must  be  the  cause  of  his  own 
actions ;  but  he  Avho  is  the  cause  of  his  own  actions  may  not  be 
able,  under  similar  conditions,  to  do  otherwise.  In  other  words, 
velleity  is  a  conception  which  includes  or  implies  spontaneity, 
but  spontaneity  does  not  include  velleity.  This  is  an  important 
fact  bearing  on  the  liability  to  illusion  caused  by  this  peculiar 
relation.  Velleity,  however,  will  be  the  name  for  this  differen- 
tial quality,  known  as  the  power  of  alternative  choice.  It  is 
illustrated  most  clearly  perhaps  in  the  phenomenon  of  delibera- 
tion. Whether  this  proves  anything  or  not  in  regard  to  freedom 
is  not  the  question  at  present.  But  it  does  show  that  the  agent 
is  conscious  of  one  or  more  alternative  volitions  as  presented, 
Avhether  he  be  able  or  not  to  choose  any  but  one  of  them  under 
the  conditions.  This  Avill  explain  the  conception  which  might 
naturally  arise  respecting  his  freedom  as  velleity.  Kesponsibility 
seems  to  imply  much  more  than  mere  causality.  A  man  with 
nothing  but  instincts  to  determine  his  conduct  would  be  the  cause 
of  his  actions,  but  no  one  Avould  attribute  responsibility  to  him. 
Hence  more  than  mere  spontaneity  is  required  to  establish  that 
quality  of  rational  beings.  If,  then,  we  could  add  the  capacity  of 
alternative  choice  to  subjective  causation,  or  velleity  to  spontaneity, 
we  could  sustain  responsibility.  In  fact,  this  last  is  ofteu  identi- 
fied with  freedom.     We  shall  find  later  a  reason  to  distinguish 


158  ELEMEyrS  OF  ETHICS 

them  njucli  as  we  have  distinguished  the  second  and  third  con- 
ceptions of  freedom.  In  the  meantime,  however,  freedom  in  every 
sense  of  the  term  can  be  regarded  as  a  condition  of  responsibility, 
while  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  capacity  of  alterna- 
tive choice  implied  in  the  latter  is  taken  to  denote  freedom. 
With  this  definition  of  the  various  uses  of  the  term  we  may  turn 
to  a  statement  of  the  real  problem  involved  in  the  controversy 
between  those  who  affirm  and  those  who  deny  the  freedom  of 
the  will. 

2d.  The  Issue  in  Regard  to  Freedom.— This  issue  between  the 
disputants  regarding  free  will  does  not  concern  all  the  meanings 
of  the  term.  It  has  in  reality  to  do  with  only  one  of  them, 
namely,  velleity.  But  the  fact  that  the  term  has  three  distinct 
meanings  is  very  important,  as  showing  the  illusion  and  fallacies 
of  certain  arguments,  both  for  and  against  freedom.  This  fact 
we  shall  make  clear  again.  At  present  it  is  an  excuse  both  for 
the  analysis  we  have  given  and  for  the  sifting  of  the  issue  do^>Ti 
to  its  simplest  terms. 

In  the  first  place,  if  freedom  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  liberty, 
or  exemption  from  external  restraint,  thei-e  is  no  doubt  whatever 
that  man  is  not  free.  Xo  one,  probably,  would  deny  this  fact. 
There  is,  or  ought  to  be,  perfect  agreement  in  regard  lo  this  con- 
ception of  the  case.  The  controversy,  therefore,  between  the  two 
schools  cannot  turn  upon  this  view  of  the  problem.  Secondly,  if 
freedom  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  spontaneity,  there  can  be  no 
denying  that  man  is  free  in  all  actions  that  can  be  called  his 
own  ;  that  is,  his  volitions.  Nothing  need  be  implied  here  one 
way  or  the  other  about  reflex  and  automatic  actions,  and  such 
other  movements  as  are  connected  with  the  physical  person,  but 
not  willed  by  the  conscious  agent.  We  are  dealing  only  with 
volitions,  which  are  conscious  acts,  and  are  not  anything  else. 
Tliese  must  be  free  or  .self-caused  as  opposed  to  being  mechan- 
ically cau.sed.  All  parties,  as  we  have  n!  ready  remarked,  are 
agreed  again  on  this  L^sue.  Hence  the  controversy  cannot  turn 
upon  the  question  whether  spontaneity  is  a  fact  or  not.  This  is 
not  the  conception  of  freedom  which  is  denied.     There  remains. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  159 

therefore,  only  the  thiid  conception,  namely,  velleity,  or  the 
possibility  of  alternative  choice,  as  the  one  about  which  the  dis- 
pute can  turn.  The  fact  is  that  this  is  the  only  one  that  can 
present  any  rational  ground  for  doubt.  It  is  not  the  only  con- 
ception of  it  that  enters  into  the  questions  of  ethics  or  conditions 
other  characteristics  of  man,  namely,  responsibility.  But  it  is 
the  only  conception  of  free  will  that  can  be  open  to  dispute; 
that  is,  of  which  there  may  be  two  opinions.  Many  of  the  argu- 
ments, however,  have  no  bearing  upon  this  conception  of  it. 
Nevertheless,  in  examining  them  as  we  discuss  this  one  true 
issue,  we  shall  be  obliged  to  state  them  as  they  are  advanced, 
and  can  then  estimate  their  value  as  we  perceive  their  relation 
to  the  question.  ^Tien  the  proper  time  comes  we  shall  state 
the  arguments  on  both  sides,  but  only  with  the  understanding 
that  the  issue,  whether  the  arguments  are  relevant  or  not,  is 
only  concerning  velleity,  and  not  freedom  in  every  sense  of  the 
term.  In  the  meantime,  before  undertaking  to  consider  this 
controversy,  another  aspect  of  the  issue  requires  to  be  analyzed 
very  carefully,  namely,  the  theories  of  volition  and  the  concep- 
tions which  they  imply.  We  shall  probably  find  as  manv 
sources  of  confusion  and  equivocation  in  them  as  in  the  diverse 
notions  of  freedijm  which  we  have  examined. 

3d.  The  Theories  of  Volition. — One  classification  of  these 
theories  makes  them  only  two  which  are  opposed  to  each  other. 
They  are  Xece-mta nanism  or  Determinimi,  and  Lihertariani.?m  or 
Freedomi&m.  IS^ecessitarianism  or  determinism,  as  conceived  in 
this  classification,  maintains  that  man's  actions  are  necessitated, 
that  he  cannot  act  otherwise  than  he  does.  Each  volition  is 
conceived,  by  this  thoery,  as  inevitable  under  the  circumstances, 
as  inevitable  as  the  Ml  of  an  apple  under  the  attraction  of  gravi- 
tation, if  it  be  unsiispended  or  unsupported.  In  its  extreme 
form  a  man  is  not  blamed  for  his  conduct.  It  is  treated  as  the 
necessary  effect  of  a  cause  over  which  the  agent  has  no  control. 
If  a  man  steals,  he  cannot  help  it ;  it  is  the  result  of  his  charac- 
ter or  his  circumstances.  If  he  does  not  steal,  regard  for  property 
is  just  as  fatal  in  deciding  his  conduct  as  disregard  for  it  is  in  the 


160  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

case  of  tlie  thief.  The  difFereDce  between  the  two  pei*sons  is  in 
their  antecedent  characters.  They  have  not  the  same  powers,  such 
as  freedom  supposes.  On  the  other  hand,  libertarianism  or  free- 
domism  maintains  that  man  is  free,  that  he  has  the  power  of 
alternative  choice  or  velleity,  and  that  his  actions  are  not  neces- 
sitated in  any  sense  of  the  term.  It  holds  that  man  makes  his 
own  character,  so  far  as  that  is  an  expression  of  volition  at  all, 
and  that  where  it  is  not  such  a  product  it  has  no  causal  power  to 
determiue  his  volitions.  The  antithesis  or  opposition  between 
this  theory  and  that  of  necessity  is  complete,  and  there  would 
seem  to  be  no  choice  except  between  the  two.  The  terms,  of 
course,  are  liable  to  all  the  illusions  attending  their  equivocal 
meaning.  But  after  restricting  the  issue  to  the  power  of  alter- 
native choice  the  opposition  between  them  would  seem  to  be  clear 
and  our  choice  restricted  to  one  or  the  other. 

It  is  important  to  remark,  in  spite  of  this  conception  of  the 
case,  that  the  matter  is  not  quite  so  clear.  Both  the  historical 
treatment  of  free  will  and  the  arguments  used  for  and  against  it 
assume  at  least  one  more  point  of  view,  and  also  conceptions  of 
the  problem  involving  more  than  one  idea  of  freedom.  On  this 
account  it  is  necessary  to  give  what  we  regard  as  a  more  com- 
plete and  satisfactory  classification  of  theories,  defining  the  vari- 
ous possible  attitudes  toward  the  problem.  The  two  theories 
already  mentioned  seem  both  to  admit  that  volitions  are  caused, 
and  in  this  view  of  the  case  the  opposition  must  be  between 
two  different  kinds  of  causes.  But  all  moralists  have  not 
been  agreed  that  freedomism  admitted  the  subordination  of 
volition  to  the  law  of  causation.  Hence  there  have  been  at 
least  two  forms  of  that  theory,  and  there  has  also  been  more 
than  one  form  of  necessitarianism.  But  as  the  argument  has 
most  frequently  turned  upon  the  connection  of  causation  with 
volition,  tliis  princii)lc  should  be  the  basis  of  a  true  chussificatiou, 
and  since  freed(jm  in  tiie  minds  of  many  jjcrsons  lias  been  under- 
stood to  imply  that  free  actions  are  not  caused,  we  must  recog- 
nize a  theory  representing  that  point  of  view. 

The  most  general  classification  of  theories  represented  by  his- 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  161 

torical  controversies  is  that  which  divides  them  into  Determinism 
and  Indetermiuism,  or  the  freedom  of  iudiiference,  sometimes 
called  Indifferentism.  Determinism  maintains  that  volitions  are 
caused.  We  must  remember,  however,  that  usage  has  not 
always  opposed  this  idea  to  freedom.  Kant  and  Leibnitz  and 
others  have  represented  themselves  as  freedomists  and  yet 
determiuists  at  the  same  time.  As  we  use  the  term  here,  there- 
fore, it  is  not  meant  to  oppose  anything  but  indetermiuism,  but 
asserts  only  that  volitions  are  subject  to  the  law  of  causation,  like 
all  other  events ;  but  it  does  not  say  anything  about  the  kind  of 
cause  concerned.  On  the  other  hand,  indetermiuism  does  not 
represent  a  single  type  of  conception.  It  is  only  in  one  of  its 
senses  that  it  is  distinctly  opposed  to  determinism  as  a  theory  of 
caused  volitions.  But  it  represents  three  different  forms  of  con- 
dition for  free  action.  They  are  (a)  causeless  volitions ;  (&) 
motiveless  volitions;  and  (c)  indifferent  volitions.  It  is  only  the 
first  of  these  that  is  distinctly  opposed  to  modern  determinism, 
but  it  has  been  held  by  many  wi'iters  as  a  primary  condition  of 
freedom  that  volitions  should  be  uncaused  or  independent  of  the 
law  of  causation.  This  was  the  claim  of  Hume,  is  the  claim  of 
Spencer,  and  of  all  who  use,  as  one  writer  does,  the  following 
language:  "Belie\'ing  as  the  author  does  that  change  is  un- 
thinkable except  in  the  category  of  causation,  the  affirmation 
that  the  will  is  free,  or  that  the  self  is  free  to  will,  seems  thor- 
oughly unwarranted  either  by  fact  or  reason."  On  the  other 
hand,  many  medieval  and  some  later  writers  have  held  that  a 
volition  in  order  to  be  free  should  be  motiveless.  They  admitted 
that  if  it  were  caused  by  "  motives,"  the  strongest  would  prevail 
and  that  this  would  cut  off  the  possibility  of  alternative  choice. 
Hence  they  conceived  free  volition  as  motiveless.  The  famous 
illustration  of  this  idea  was  the  ass  between  two  bundles  of  hay 
(asinus  Buridani).  The  idea  was  that  an  ass  placed  between 
two  bundles  of  hay  would  be  equally  attracted  by  both  of 
them,  and  if  under  this  condition  he  could  not  choose  to  eat, 
he  must  stai-ve.  The  determinist  said  he  must  either  starve 
or  the  motives  were  not  equal.      The  freedomist  held  that  the 


162  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

attractions  must  be  equal,  and  yet  it  was  a  fact  that  the  ass 
would  eat  of  one  or  both  bundles  of  hay.  Both  sides,  how- 
ever, agreed  that  if  free  and  the  two  motives  were  equal  the 
volition  of  the  ass  had  to  be  motiveless,  because  the  two  opposing 
attractions  neutralized  each  other.  Such  is  the  famous  concep- 
tion of  the  fi-eedom  of  indifference  as  action  without  a  motive. 
The  third  conception  of  indeterminism  is  very  much  like  the 
second,  though  it  does  not  affirm  that  free  action  must  exclude 
motives.  It  simj)ly  maintains  that  it  should  be  as  indifferent  to 
motives  as  to  any  other  mental  fact.  It  admits  the  concomitance 
and  denies  the  causality  of  motives. 

But  as  the  freedomist  has  often  admitted  that  volitions 
are  caused,  and  only  asserted  that  it  was  free  as  opposed  to 
necessary  causation,  the  theory  of  determinism  divides  into 
two  forms.  I  shall  call  them  objective  determinism  and  sub- 
jective determinism.  The  former  would  be  properly  named 
also  physical  necessitarianism.  This  is  the  conception  that 
would  refer  all  actions  to  the  law  of  mechanical  causation 
or  initiation  from  without.  All  j^hysical  movements  are  caused 
by  external  impulsion  or  influence  and  do  not  originate 
spontaneously  or  from  within  the  su1)jcct.  The  stroke  of  a 
ball,  the  fall  of  a  stone  or  a  tree,  the  expansion  of  matter  under 
heat,  the  growth  of  organic  life,  the  changes  of  the  seasons,  etc., 
are  all  necessitated  events.  ^Mechanical  necessitarianism,  if 
seriously  held  by  any  one,  would  maintain  that  volitions  are  of 
the  same  type  of  events.  They  might  occur  wholly  within  the 
subject,  but  nevertheless  be  the  product  of  the  brain,  which  is  a 
physical  force  external  to  the  volition  and  the  subject  itself  only 
of  mechanical  causes.  This  is  to  say  that  volition  so  conceived 
is  only  one  in  a  series  of  events  having  their  |)oint  of  transmis- 
sion in  the  brain.  If  this  be  true  tlie  will  cannot  be  free  in  any 
sense  of  the  term,  exce|)t  possibly  spontaneity,  bccanse  it  would 
be  iKjthing  nn^re  than  tliC  brain  itself  in  the  exercise  of  certain 
functions. 

On  the  other  hand,  subjeetive  determinisni,  while  it  is  opposed 
to  mechanical  necessitarianism ;  that  is,  to  the  theory  that  all 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL 


163 


events  whatsoever  are  the  effect  of  causes  foreign  to  the  subject 
in  Avhich  they  occur,  is  not  opposed  to  the  conception  that 
volitions  may  be  quite  as  uniform  and  unalterable  as  if  they 
were  mechanically  initiated.  It,  therefore,  divides  into  two 
forms,  which  I  shall  call  psychical  necessitarianism  and  freedom- 
ism,  according  as  volitions  are  the  effect  of  spontaneity  or  of 
veUeify.  Psychical  necessitarianism  admits  that  volitions  are  not 
externally  caused,  but  are  the  product  of  the  subject.  However, 
it  opposes  the  conception  that  alternative  choice  is  equally 
possible.  It  is  founded  upon  the  prevalence  of  the  strongest 
motive,  a  phenomenon  conceived  after  the  analogy  of  the 
mechanical  law  regarding  the  resultant  of  physical  forces,  and 
upon  the  doctrine  that  a  man  must  act  in  accordance  ^ith  the 
bent  of  his  character.  That  is  to  say,  it  holds  that  whatever 
other  courses  of  action  may  be  conceived  by  the  subject  onlv 
one  of  them  is  possible  to  him,  his  nature  being  what  it  is,  and 
that  our  inability  to  tell  beforehand  what  the  subject  will  do  is 
due  wholly  to  our  ignorance  of  the  complex  conditions  consti- 
tuting his  character.  On  the  other  hand,  freedomism  simply 
affirms  that  man  can  choose  equally  between  two  alternatives, 
and  so  is  opposed  alike  to  physical  and  to  psychical  necessita- 
rianism. 

The  following  tabular  outline  is  a  resume  of  the  classification 
just  given : 

Causeless  Volitions  =  (Spontaneous  Generation). 
Indeterminism  -l   ^iotiveless  Volitions  =  (Automatism). 
Indifferent  Volitions  =  (Indifferentism). 


Determinism 


Objective  Determinism 


Absolute  =  Fatalism. 


,T         ....  Relative  =  Mechanism. 

JN  ecessitarianism   L 

f  Psychical 

N  ecessitarianism 

or 
Univolism. 

[  Freedomism. 


Subjective  Determinism 

or 

Mental  Causation 


In  stating  the  real  issue  involved  in  the  controversy  about  free- 


164  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

dom,  it  is  important  to  note  tlie  number  of  possible  antitheses  ex- 
pressed by  this  classification,  and  to  indicate,  as  iu  the  conception 
of  freedom,  just  wliere  the  only  real  and  true  opposition  exists. 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  classification  does  not 
attempt  in  all  cases  to  avoid  cross-division,  which  a  strictly  log- 
ical system  would  do.  But  it  endeavors  only  to  state  the  tradi- 
tional conceptions  and  antitheses  with  as  clear  a  view  of  them  as 
is  possible  in  the  case.  Thus  historically  indeterniinism  and  de- 
terminism are  opposed  to  each  other,  and  it  has  been  true  also 
historically  that  motiveless  volitions  were  intended  to  express 
indetermiuism,  but  in  reality  they  are  not  opposed  to  determin- 
ism or  caused  volitions.  The  only  real  antagonism  in  the  case 
can  be  between  determinism  and  indetermiuism  as  causeless 
volitions  or  spontaneous  generation.  This  is  an  inconsistency  in 
historical  thought,  which  can  be  eliminated  only  in  either  of 
two  ways — either  by  abandoning  the  term  indeterminism  as 
properly  describing  them,  or  by  changing  the  principle  of  oppo- 
sition between  this  and  determinism. 

But  in  ascertaining  the  real  issue  between  the  two  schools  of 
thought  we  have  only  to  note  that  in  later  times  it  is  every- 
where admitted,  with  a  few  exceptions,  that  volitions  can  be 
neither  causeless  nor  motiveless,  nor  indiflferent  to  a  particular 
one.  On  this  supposition  freedom  has  either  to  be  denied  or 
regarded  as  compatible,  perhaps  identical,  with  determinism.  In 
fact,  as  long  as  determinism  means  nothing  more  than  the  fact 
that  volitions,  like  other  events,  must  be  subject  to  the  law  of 
causation,  it  cannot  be  opposed  to  a  doctrine  of  freedom  affirm- 
ing that  volitions  are  caused  by  the  subjccf.  If  necessitarian- 
ism, or  determinism,  as  employed  by  some  writers,  is  to  oppose 
freedom  at  all  it  must  place  the  antithesis  upon  some  other  priu- 
ci])le  than  causation  without  any  qualifications. 

Again,  there  is  a  clear  antithesis  between  objective  or  physical 
and  subjective  or  mental  determinism,  so  that  if  one  of  them  be 
true  regarding  volitions  the  other  cannot  l)e.  But  as  no  one, 
not  even  the  materialist,  supposes  that  volitions  arc  caused  by 
external  objects,  tlie  opjjo^ition  to  freedom  cannot  l)e  made  from 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  165 

the  standpoint  of  mechanical  causation  external  to  the  organism. 
All  are  agreed,  as  has  been  already  affirmed,  that  man  is  the 
cause  of  his  own  actions.  The  only  remaining  question  is 
whether  he  must  choose  as  he  does,  or  whether  he  could  equally 
choose  otherwise  than  he  does.  The  antitheses,  then,  if  it  is  to 
represent  anything  real  in  actual  human  opinion  on  the  prob- 
lem of  free  will,  must  be  found  in  the  distinction  between  free- 
domism  as  defined  in  the  above  classification  and  psychical 
determinism  or  univolism.*  The  real  issue,  therefore,  sifts 
itself  down  to  a  question  between  two  kinds  of  subjective  deter- 
minism. AVhile  other  antitheses  logically  exist,  they  represent  a 
wholly  false  conception  of  the  real  problem,  and  while  they  in- 
dicate past  and  historical  theories  regarding  volition,  they  do 
not  represent  anything  at  present  worth  contending  about.  No 
consequences  to  ethical  doctrines  are  involved  in  any  of  them 
but  the  last.  Hence  the  controversy  must  be  confined  to  the 
issue  between  freedomism,  and  univolism  or  psycho-dynamism. 
All  arguments  not  tending  to  establish  one  of  these  and  to  re- 
fute the  other  are  absolutely  irrelevant  to  the  problem. 

UL  FACTS  AXD  ARGUJUEyTS  AGAISST  FREE  WILL— 
In  stating  these  arguments  we  shall  not  have  exclusive  reference 
to  the  issue  as  we  have  defined  it  really  to  be.  There  is  every 
reason  to  respect  historical  conceptions  ;  that  is,  past  ideas  of  the 
case,  and  their  influence  upon  many  thinkers  to-day  where  a 
little  circumspection  would  both  discover  illusion  and  simplify 
the  issue.  Consequently  we  shall  state  all  the  facts  and  princi- 
ples which  we  are  likely  to  find  among  present  and  past  contro- 
versialists, and  which  are  used  to  deny  freedom  in  some  sense  of 
the  term.  Their  relevancy  can  be  discussed  in  the  proper  place. 
But  they  will  be  stated  in  their  order  and  as  briefly  as  possible. 

*  I  have  deliberately  coined  the  word  "  univolism  "  (Latin  unus  and  volo) 
for  the  convenience  and  economy  of  a  single  term.  Besides,  it  has  the  ad- 
vantage of  expressing  etymologically  the  singleness  of  the  volition,  or  of  the 
course  open  to  choice,  so  called,  and  contrasts  very  well  with  freedomism 
as  the  theory  of  velleity  or  alternative  choice.  Univolism  thus  expresses 
the  only  tenable  position  which  can  be  taken  by  a  theory  calling  itself 
necessitarianism.     Psyeho-Dynamitim  might  also  be  used  for  the  purpose. 


166  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

1st.  The  Universality  of  Causation. — This  argument  when 
stated  is  that  all  events  are  subject  to  the  law  of  causation, 
and  as  volition  is  an  event  it  must  come  under  that  law,  and  as 
causation  is  supposed  to  necessitate  the  event  which  it  causes 
volitions  would  appear  to  be  necessary  and  not  free. 

2d.  Man's  Subordinate  Place  in  Nature. — This  argument 
is  a  special  application  of  that  from  universal  causation,  as 
perhaps  most  of  them  are.  But  it  is  not  always  realized  to  be 
such,  and  hence  has  a  force  of  its  own.  It  conceives  man  as  a 
dependent  creature  and  all  his  conduct  limited  and  determined  by 
powers  superior  to  his  o^mi.  It  is  unquestionably  true  that  man  is 
a  mere  atom  compared  with  the  number  and  greatness  of  the 
forces  that  subordinate  him  to  themselves.  Nothing  has  empha- 
sized this  more  distinctly  than  modern  astronomy  aud  the  theory 
of  evolution.  The  one  shows  the  immensity  of  the  forces  in 
space  that  are  related  to  him  and  condition  his  activities,  and  the 
other  shows  what  limitations  in  time  are  in  the  way  of  attaining 
an  ideal  which  only  slowly  realizes  itself.  Theology  again  with 
its  conception  of  God,  which  only  adds  personality  to  the  power 
recognized  by  natural  science,  and  retains  the  idea  of  man's 
extremely  finite  capacities,  illustrates  the  same  conception. 
Man's  dependence  for  existence  and  for  his  capacities  upon 
these  vast  agencies,  and  the  terrible  limitations  which  they  im- 
pose upon  his  choice,  might  well  frighten  him  in  his  claims 
of  freedom.  Freedom  seems  to  imply  independence  of  limi- 
tatioDS,  but  finding  that  the  universe  subordinates  man  wholly  to 
its  OAvn  laws  and  activities  it  is  only  natural  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  such  a  fact  should  humiliate  the  pretensions  of  all  creat- 
ures. At  any  rate,  it  appears  to  those  who  are  conscious  of  this 
dependence  that  freedom  would  imply  superiority  to  the  laws  of 
nature. 

3d.  The  Prevalence  of  the  Strongest  Motive. — This  argument 
conceives  tlu;  molivo  as  dcteniiiniiig  the  volition.  It  must  be 
the  antecedent  of  every  conscious  choice  and  act,  and  we  have 
l)cen  accustomed  to  regard  tlie  end  chf)seu  as  an  alternative  to 
otliors  as  representing  the  strongest  motive.     A  reason  always 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  167 

seems  necessaiy  for  one  choice  rather  than  another,  and  prefer- 
ence implies  a  stronger  desire  for  the  alternative  chosen.  Now, 
from  the  su2)position  that  motives  are  causes,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  from  the  analogy  of  prevailing  or  stronger  forces  in  the 
physical  world  with  the  necessary  character  of  their  effects,  it  is 
very  natural  to  infer  that  a  man  cannot  will  otherwise  than  he 
does,  that  the  strongest  motive  always  prevailing,  he  has  no  real 
alternative  to  the  volition  chosen.  The  argument  gets  much  of 
its  cogency  from  its  analogy  vaih.  the  law  of  resultant  forces, 
which  is  purely  a  mechanical  and  necessary  law. 

4th.  The  Influence  of  Character. — Character  is  a  fixed  way 
of  acting,  or  it  is  that  fixed  quality  in  the  nature  of  an  individ- 
ual according  to  which  we  always  expect  to  see  him  act.  A 
man  must  act  according  to  his  nature  and  he  cannot  act  other- 
wise. Xot  to  be  able  to  act  otherwise  than  he  does  is  taken 
as  a  denial  of  freedom.  As  a  man's  nature  is,  so  are  his  deeds. 
Thus  if  we  find  a  man  addicted  to  intemperance  we  explain 
his  habit,  not  only  by  the  strongest  motive,  but  also  by  a  cer- 
tain predisposition  in  his  constitution,  physical  or  mental.  He 
is  said  to  have  a  tendency  which  predetermines  him  to  drink. 
So  with  theft,  homicide,  vice,  cruelty,  and  all  other  criminal  acts 
which  manifest  themselves  in  a  permanent  disposition  to  commit 
them.  T^^e  come  to  think  that  the  criminal  cannot  help  doing 
what  he  does,  and  all  because  his  character  inclines  him  that 
Avay  and  does  not  permit  that  intellectual  balance  of  ideas  and 
feelings  which  would  regulate  the  will  either  for  prudence  or  for 
righteousness. 

Then  it  is  a  man's  nature  to  be  hungry,  to  be  thirsty,  to  feel 
sensations  when  touched,  to  think,  to  remember,  to  perform 
reflex  and  automatic  actions,  and  none  of  these  are  said  to  be 
free.  Why  except  the  will  and  its  actions?  Will  not  the 
nature  of  the  sulijcct  show  as  much  inevitableuess  in  the  field  of 
the  will  as  in  that  of  the  intellect  and  the  emotions?  Does  not 
character  decide  as  necessarily  a  man's  volitions  as  it  does  his 
thoughts  and  feelings  ?  It  certainly  seems  to  show  as  much  reg- 
ularity of  purpose  and  conduct  as  natural  laws,  and  may  not  the 


1 68  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

fact  be  due  to  similar  causes,  to  fixed  conditions  wliich  prevent 
alternative  choice  in  spite  of.  appearances  to  the  contrar}"  ?  Im- 
pulse and  instinct  show,  one  of  them  a  fixed  tendency  to  adjust- 
ment ^Yith  a  variable  medium,  and  the  other  an  organic  tendency 
to  act  without  regard  to  changes  of  environment.  We  do  not 
suspect  freedom,  in  the  latter  case  at  least,  and  it  is  only  an 
expression  of  the  nature  of  the  subject.  In  conscious  actions, 
such  as  theft,  vice,  dishonesty,  injustice,  intemjoerance,  etc.,  a 
man  seems  either  to  be  the  victim  of  the  strongest  motive,  as  in 
impulse,  or  the  slave  of  his  nature,  as  in  instinct.  Moreover,  is 
not  character  but  a  name  for  a  higher  instinct,  a  fixed  tendency, 
in  spite  of  the  presence  of  consciousness  ?  Will  the  fact  that 
the  character  is  good  affect  the  question?  Is  it  not,  whether 
good  or  bad,  merely  a  quality  of  natural  constitution,  Avhich 
fixes  once  for  all  the  direction  of  the  will,  just  as  a  genius  for 
mathematics  or  for  philosophy  fixes  the  nature  of  one's  ideas  ? 
If  thus  compelled  by  character  to  adopt  a  given  course  in  prefer- 
ence to  another,  a  man's  conduct  does  not  seem  to  exhibit  that 
equilibrium  between  two  alternatives  which  is  supposed  to  de- 
fine freedom.  Hence  the  limitations  of  nature  and  of  habit, 
which  is  "  a  second  nature,"  are  such  as  to  give  human  conduct 
all  the  regularity  and  certitude  of  actions  which  are  universally 
regarded  as  necessary  rather  than  free. 

5th.  The  Influence  of  Heredity. — This  argument  is  a  special 
application  of  the  one  from  character,  but  always  appears 
stronger  to  the  mind  l)ecause  of  its  peculiar  implications.  Char- 
acter, as  we  ordinarily  use  it,  may  express  nothing  more  than 
hal)it,  or  the  unifi)rm  way  in  which  a  man  does  act  and  that 
enables  us  to  estimate  the  prol)a])ilities  of  future  action.  But 
being  itself  prcsunuibly  the  product  of  will,  we  do  not  feel  the  force 
of  attributing  volition  to  character  as  its  cause  unless  we  intend 
to  convey  ])y  it  a  (juality  which  is  not  a  product  of  our  own 
choice  and  habits.  We  are,  or  have  been,  accustomed  to  assume 
that  every  individual  comes  into  tlie  world  without  any  special 
bent  in  one  direction  and  that  he  learns  to  act  in  a  special  way 
by  experience.     The  em])irical  school  of  j)sychology  has  always 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  169 

taught  a  doctrine  that  practically  agreed  with  the  traditional 
assumptions  of  free  will,  namely,  that  the  mind  is  a  tabula  rasa 
and  has  to  learn  everything  by  experience,  there  being  no  innate 
"  practical  principles  "  any  more  than  there  are  innate  theoretical 
principles  or  truths.  This  is  to  say  that  there  is  no  special  char- 
acter or  disposition  to  determine  the  ^A■ill  in  one  direction  rather 
than  another.  But  the  school  of  psychology  which  opposes  em- 
piricism, or  the  derivation  of  ever}'thing  from  the  experience  of 
the  indi\4dual,  adheres  to  the  doctrine  that  the  subject  is  natu- 
rally endowed  with  certain  constitutional  faculties  and  propensi- 
ties from  which  he  has  no  escape  and  which  determine  the  direc- 
tion of  his  life.  He  has  not  the  power  to  banish  them  from  his 
nature.  The  doctrine  of  heredity  comes  in  to  reinforce  this 
opinion.  AYhatever  we  may  suppose  the  ancestor  to  have  been, 
and  granting  that  his  character  was  a  product  of  his  experience, 
it  does  not  always  seem  to  be  the  case  with  his  successor,  who 
inherits  a  predisposition  to  certain  kinds  of  action.  Here  the 
power  of  habit  transmits  itself  from  one  generation  where  it 
shows  at  least  some  instability  to  another  where  it  seems  to  have 
all  the  stability  and  domination  of  an  instinct,  and  instinctive 
is  presumably  not  free  action.  A  man  is  born  ^vith  a  he- 
reditary tendency  to  drink,  to  theft,  to  vice,  to  criminality 
in  general,  and  this  means  that  he  has  not  the  nature  to 
feel  and  appreciate  any  other  alternative  than  the  one  to 
which  he  is  predisposed.  We  might  say  that  he  could 
choose  otherwise  if  he  so  desired.  But  it  is  the  want  of 
any  other  desire  that  is  his  defect  and  which  indicates  the 
sole  possession  of  the  one  affecting  his  will.  Had  he  another 
desire  he  would  be  as  much  fhe  victim  of  that,  whether  good  or 
bad,  as  the  one  disposed  actually  to  determine  his  conduct.  We 
are  here  disposed  to  assume  that  if  only  the  character  is  good 
there  is  more  freedom  than  if  it  is  bad.  But  this  is  an  illusion. 
Heredity  shows  a .  constitutional  tendency  in  one  direction, 
whether  good  or  evil,  and  so  determines  the  most  decided  limita- 
tions to  any  expectations  that  the  agent  will  have  free  control  over 
his  passions.     It  is  a  predetermination  of  the  subject's  life  and 


170  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

action,  and  seems  to  establish  an  overwhelming  objection  to  the 
possibility  of  alternative  choice.  It  is  au  inborn  trait  which  pre- 
determines the  strongest  motive  and  shuts  out  others  from  suc- 
cessful competition  vnih  this  one  tendency.  In  every  individual 
■whom  we  find  haudicaj)ped  by  any  marked  hereditary  tendencies, 
we  instinctively  feel  that  he  is  to  be  pitied  or  admired  according 
to  his  endowment,  and  not  according  to  his  action.  'We  do  not 
blame  him  so  severely,  but  rather  feel  compassion  for  him,  if  the 
inheritance  be  a  bad  one ;  nor  do  we  bestow  as  much  praise  upon 
his  conduct,  if  we  find  it  merely  the  result  of  a  natural  aptitude 
which  might  yield  to  any  change  of  circumstances  (and  we  must 
remember  that  even  instincts  are  variable),  as  we  should  when 
we  know  it  to  be  rational  rather  than  a  merely  hereditary  and 
instinctive  following  of  the  line  of  least  resistance.  All  of  these 
facts  seem  to  point  to  a  limitation  at  least,  and  perhaps  an 
exclusion,  of  freedom  from  the  qualities  of  the  subject,  when 
heredity  produces  an  unbalanced  soul  and  fixes  the  direction  of 
its  inclinations. 

6th.  The  Mechanical  Regularity  of  Habit. — The  force  of  this 
argument  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  seems  to  attest  the  existence  of 
a  predominant  tendency  to  act  in  a  given  direction.  It  is  not 
the  habit  itself  which  is  regarded  as  the  limiting  cause  of  voli- 
tions that  are  supposed  not  to  be  free,  but  it  is  merely  a  fact 
which  indicates  the  momentum  of  the  mind  and  attests  the  pre- 
vailing motive  and  the  more  or  less  fixed  character  of  the  agent 
which  are  presumed  to  contradict  freedom.  We  often  see  habits 
which  take  such  possession  of  the  individual  that  they  seem  as 
strong  as  instincts  and  as  irresistible  as  passions.  They  act  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  making  a* mere  machine  of  the  subject 
and  exhibiting  conduct  that  cannot  be  distinguished  for  regular- 
ity and  blindness  from  the  actions  and  movements  of  physical 
bodies.     Surely  sucli  a  snl)jcct  cannot  be  free. 

7th.  The  Predictability  of  Human  Actions. — Tliis  argument  is 
designed  to  compare  volitions  lo  events  wliich  are  regarded  as 
necessary  because  they  occur  with  the  fatuity  of  all  physical  i)he- 
noraena  and  caniuit  1)C  prevented  or  made  variable.     Thus  wo 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  171 

can  predict  the  eclipses  of  the  sun  and  moon,  the  exact  hour  and 
minute  of  the  tides,  the  return  of  a  comet,  the  position  of  the 
planets,  the  recurrence  of  the  seasons,  and  even  to  some  extent 
the  weather,  our  limitations  in  all  instances  being  due  to  our 
ignorance  of  the  complex  conditions  determining  the  phenom- 
enon. But  where  we  know  the  conditions,  such  as  the  action  of 
gra^-itation,  we  can  predict  withunerring  certainty  the  eflect  of 
them.  All  such  phenomena  are  invariable  and  necessary.  There 
is  no  caprice  or  yariation  about  them,  and  this  is  because  they 
are  under  the  control  of  natural  laws,  which  operate  without 
either  the  consciousness  or  the  possibility  of  alternatiye  action. 
The  regularity  of  their  action  is  an  eyidence  of  their  source, 
so  that  if  we  find  human  conduct  showing  a  similar  regularity 
and  predictability  we  would  at  once  suspect  that  it  was  under 
the  control  of  a  similar  iueyitable  cause.  Now,  as  a  fact,  obser- 
yation  shows  a  remarkable  regularity  in  the  amount  of  suicide 
and  other  crimes  in  different  localities  and  conditions  of  the 
world,  a  regularity  that  enables  us  to  predict,  according  to  the 
measure  of  our  knowledge  of  the  conditions,  the  amount  of  it 
likely  to  occur  from  year  to  year.  Also  illegitimacy  shows  about 
the  same  percentage  from  period  to  period  and  eyen  has  its 
special  ratio  for  the  different  seasons.  Vagrancy  can  now  be  cal- 
culated to  a  reasonable  degree  of  accuracy  for  the  various  coun- 
tries, and  this  with  suicide  and  illegitimacy  does  not  greatly 
modify  its  ratio  with  the  increase  of  population,  as  we  should 
naturally  expect  that  it  would  vary.  The  amount  of  poverty  in 
large  cities  due  to  intemperance  shows  a  very  striking  resem- 
blance in  all  cases.  jS'ow,  if  we  only  knew  the  conditions  of  all 
conduct  so  well  as  in  these  cases  we  might  be  able  to  forecast 
just  what  was  likely  to  take  place,  while  it  is  presumed  that 
there  can  be  no  foretelling  of  free  actions.  Where  any  other 
possibility  exists,  or  any  number  of  such  possibilities  other  than 
the  one  actually  willed,  it  would  seem  that  prediction  would  be 
excluded  from  the  case.  We  could  only  wait  until  the  event 
occurred  and  register  it.  That  is  to  say,  predictability  seems  to 
rest   upon  conditions  which  wholly  contradict  the  possibility  of 


172  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

alternative  events,  and  so  to  contradict  freedom  which  supposes 
that  pogsibility. 

8th.  Predestination  or  Foreordination. — This  is  the  theo- 
logical argument  against  freedom.  It  includes  the  previous 
argument  from  predictability  or  prescience,  but  also  contains 
the  idea  of  predetermination  by  some  external  agency.  So 
far  as  it  denotes  this  external  fixation  of  events  the  argu- 
ment is  an  overwhelming  one  to  most  persons  Avho  realize 
the  limitations  which  such  a  condition  imposes  upon  alterna- 
tive choice. 

IV.  ARG  UMEXTS IX  FA  VOR  OF  FREE  WILL— The  defense 
of  freedom  involves  two  classes  of  argument  which  do  not  have 
equal  value.  One  of  them  consists  merely  of  rebuttal  of  argu- 
ments on  the  other  side,  and  perhaps  goes  no  farther  than  show- 
ing a  verdict  of  "not  proven"  against  necessitarianism;  the 
other  attempts  to  establish  definitely  the  position  of  the  fredom- 
ist  and  so  to  distinctly  refute  the  opposing  theory.  These  I 
shall  call  respectively  the  negative  and  the  positive  arguments  for 
freedom.  The  first  class  simply  removes  the  difiiculties  created 
by  the  arguments  already  considered,  and  the  second  advances 
to  direct  proof.  Each  of  these  classes  will  have  to  be  considered 
in  its  proper  order. 

Before  examining  these  arguments,  however,  it  will  be  most 
important  to  make  some  observations  on  the  geucral  question  in 
order  to  measure  rightly  both  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of 
either  side  of  the  controversy.  It  is  a  fact  which  ought  not  to 
be  forgotten  that  both  schools  of  disputants  assume  that  wliat- 
ever  is  proved  in  tlie  case  of  one  set  of  men  applies  to  all.  We 
are  in  tlie  habit  of  assuming  that  all  men  are  equal,  an  assump- 
tion that  comes  partly  fi-om  the  history  of  modern  political 
institutions,  partly  from  the  social  life  inculcated  by  Christianity, 
and  partly  from  the  medieval  doctrine  of  freedom  and  responsi- 
bility. Human  equality  would  be  a  corollary  of  ecjual  freedom 
and  responsibihty.  But  there  is  no  greater  illusion  than  the 
supposition  that  all  pc'rs(jns  are  born  with  the  same  degree  of 
power  in  regard  to  their  conduct.     ^len  are  not  Cfjual  in  their 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  173 

physical  strength,  in  their  intelligence,  in  their  disposition,  in 
their  tastes  or  desires.  They  are  as  various  in  these  respects 
as  the  leaves  of  the  trees.  Hence  it  is  not  possible  to  carry  the 
conclusion  drawn  from  one  class  of  men  to  another  and  differently 
endowed  class,  whether  the  conclusion  regards  necessitarianism 
or  freedomism.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  men  are  unequal 
in  all  respects,  but  only  that  they  are  so  generally  unequal  that 
we  may  well  ask  whether  they  might  not  be  unequal  in  regard 
to  freedom.  For  instance,  assume  that  the  imbecile,  the  insane, 
and  the  irreclaimable  criminal  are  not  free,  it  will  not  follow 
that  the  normal  and  rational  man  is  not  free  unless  we  can 
prove  or  assume  that  in  the  necessary  conditions  the  two  are  the 
same  in  nature.  So  if  we  prove  that  the  properly  developed 
man  is  free  it  does  not  follow  that  the  abnormal  man  is  equally 
so.  We  see  no  reason  to  make  freedom  an  absolutely  simple 
quality  incapable  of  degrees.  It  is  possible  to  conceive  it  as  ex- 
isting in  all  stages  of  development  from  pure  det^erminism  to 
absolute  freedom.  Whether  it  is  so  or  not,  as  a  fact,  probably 
requires  proof  or  may  be  left-  to  individual  opinion.  But  on 
a  priori  grounds,  considering  the  enormous  inequalities  among 
men  respecting  intelligence,  feelings,  and  desires,  it  is  at  least 
probable  that  differences  of  will  capacity  should  also  exist. 
Hence  it  is  enough  to  say  that  we  must  not  hastily  conclude 
from  the  presence  or  absence  of  freedom  in  one  man  or  class  of 
men  to  the  same  in  all  others.  It  may  be  true  that  they  are 
all  alike  in  this  matter,  but  this  truth  cannot  be  assumed.  A 
valid  conclusion  must  have  the  same  conditions  in  all  cases,  and 
as  these  vary  between  blind  instincts  and  the  highest  intelligence 
and  power  there  ought  to  be  room  for  various  degrees  of 
freedom  or  of  determinism  in  volitions.  Many  of  the  argu- 
ments on  both  sides  have  their  value  modified  by  this  fact  and 
will  appear  restricted  in  application  on  this  account,  or  will 
require  additional  reasons  than  their  fitness  to  special  cases 
in  order  to  secure  them  universal  cogency.  With  this  caution 
we  may  proceed  to  consider  the  arguments  favorable  to  freedom. 
These   as  observed  are  negative  and  positive.     We  shall  state 


174  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  negative  cases  first,  as  eliminating  objections,  restricting  the 
issue,  and  clearing  our  path. 

1st.  Negative  Arguments. — The  formulation  of  the  negative 
arguments  will  involve  the  farther  analysis  of  elements  in  the 
problems  which  have  only  been  stated  incidentally.  Moreover, 
it  is  hoped  that  a  dogmatic  discussion  of  them  may  be  avoided, 
because  the  question  is  either  an  open  one  or  the  truth  may  lie 
somewhere  betweeen  the  two  extreme  theories.  The  first  criti- 
cism of  necessitarianism  begins  with  the  oldest  form  of  it. 

1.  The  Distinction  between  Mechanical  and  Imma- 
nent Causes. — By  a  mechanical  cause  we  mean  one  that  acts 
from  without  the  subject  whose  action  is  to  be  explained.  It  is 
illustrated  in  the  movements  of  physical  bodies.  A  stone  fall- 
ing to  the  ground,  a  billiard-ball  struck  by  the  cue,  a  cannon- 
ball  impelled  by  powder,  the  motion  of  an  instrument  by  the 
arm,  are  all  instances  of  mechanical  causes.  But  an  immanent 
cause  is  one  which  originates  with  the  subject  alone.  It  is  in- 
ternal or  subjective  as  opposed  to  external  or  objective  causa- 
tion. Thus  all  my  conscious  activities  or  volitions  are  the  effect 
of  myself  and  not  of  external  objects.  The  distinction  here 
made  is  designed  to  admit  the  fact  that  all  volitions  are  caused 
and  yet  are  not  subject  to  the  law  of  mechanical  necessity,  which 
would  have  to  be  the  case  were  freedom  impossible  from  the 
point  of  view  of  causation.  The  argument  against  free  will 
from  the  position  of  universal  causation  assumes  that  freedom 
means  causeless  volition.  But  when  we  admit  that  volition 
must  have  a  cause  and  distinguish  between  mechanical  and 
immanent  causes  referring  free  action  to  the  latter,  appeal  to 
the  law  of  causation  no  longer  avails  to  disprove  freedom.  This 
ought  to  be  apparent  to  every  one.  In  fact,  freedom  has 
always  meant  free  agency,  and  free  agency  is  free  causation,  a 
form  of  thought  which  no  one  has  conceived  as  opposed  to  any 
doctrine  of  cause  except  mechanical  causes.  A  free  agent  or 
cause  is  one  in  whicli  the  power  resides  to  originate  an  effect, 
and  hence  the  doctrine  of  free  will  in  its  definition  and  conccjv 
tion  does  not  stand  opposed  to  that  of  universal  causation ;  it 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  175 

opposes  none  but  the  notion  of  external  causes  or  necessity.  It 
may  be  a  fact  that  no  such 'power  of  free  agency  or  spontaneity 
exists,  but  it  is  no  disproof  of  it  to  appeal  to  universal  causa- 
tion. This  appeal  can  estabKsh  nothing  except  that  volitions 
are  caused,  but  not  that  they  are  mechanically  necessitated. 
Hence  the  reference  to  the  universal  law  of  cause  and  effect 
either  begs  the  question  by  assuming  that  the  only  law  of  causa- 
tion is  a  mechanical  one,  or  it  places  its  reliance  upon  an  equiv- 
ocation. Subjective  causation  conceives  the  whole  problem  in 
perfect  consistency  with  freedom  and  the  caused  nature  of  voli- 
tions at  the  same  time. 

However,  it  should  be  observed  that  this  doctrine  of  subjec- 
tive determinism,  though  it  removes  the  objection  from  the 
general  law  of  cause  and  effect,  does  not  prove  the  freedom  of 
velleity  or  the  possibility  of  alternative  choice.  It  is  not  rele- 
vant to  that  issue,  except  that  it  will  be  a  preliminary  step  to 
it.  It  can  prove  nothing  but  spontaneity.  Subjective  determin- 
ism or  exemption  frogi  mechanical  causes  may  not  go  any 
farther  than  spontaneous  or  automatic  actions.  But  this  at 
least  must  be  true  in  order  to  condition  any  farther  power  of 
volition,  and  when  it  is  proved,  we  have  not  only  a  doctrine 
which  puts  decided  limitations  upon  that  of  mechanical  neces- 
sity, but  also  a  position  which  removes  all  a  priori  objections  to 
freedom  in  the  true  sense.  If  one  exception  to  mechanical 
causes  in  originating  an  event  be  found,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  things  to  render  the  supposition  of  another  exception 
unreasonable.  At  the  same  time,  we  must  admit  that  the 
argument  here  does  not  prove  anything  more  than  the  freedom 
of  spontaneity. 

It  is  proper  to  call  attention  here  to  the  several  meanings  of 
the  term  cause  as  affecting  the  question.  This  term  is  some- 
times used  in  a  generic  and  sometimes  in  a  specific  sense.  It  is 
the  confusion  between  these  two  meanings  which  constitutes  both 
the  plausibility  and  the  weakness  of  the  determiuist  theory  as 
usually  understood.  In  its  general  sense  cause  denotes  any 
antecedent  whatever  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  producer  of 


17G  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

events.     But  specifically  it  lias  three  different  conceptions  at- 
tached to  it :    (a)  An   antecedent  event  or  ])^^^'>^omeno}i  which 
conditions  another  event.     For  instance,  the  motion  of  a  tree 
caused  by  the  wind,  which  in  turn  is  caused  by  something  else ; 
the  sound  of  a  falling  stone  which  has  been  put  into  motion  by 
some  other  agency ;  the  loss  of  property  by  a  conflagration  which 
is  caused  by  some  other  event.     Here  cause  means  the  imme- 
diate antecedent  event  which  produces  or  necessitates  the  suc- 
ceeding one.     (6)  An  object,  being,  or  Jorce  which  produces  an 
effect  either  of  itself  or  mediately  through  other  agencies.     For 
example,  the  sun  as  a  cause  of  heat,  soil  as  the  cause  of  growth, 
animals  as  the  cause  of  their  actions,  in  all  of  which  cases  the 
immediate  cause  is  not  conceived  as  an  event  determined  or 
brought  into  existence  by  another  immediate  event.     The  sub- 
jects have  a  certain  amount  of  relative  permanence,     (c)  The 
sum  of  all  the  conditions,  whether  events  or  things,  or  both  com- 
bined, that  are  necessary  to  the  production  of  an  effect.     For 
example,  organization  as  a  cause  of  gr(^wth,  comprising  various 
kinds  of  matter,  a  specific  temperature,  capacity  of  assimilation, 
etc.     Again,  the  various  complementary  conditions  which  pro- 
duce sound,  as  the  existence  of  two  bodies  with  sonorous  proper- 
ties, their  impact,  the   action  of  one  and  the  reaction  of  the 
other,  etc.     In  fact,  all  phenomena  are  probably  complicated 
with  complex  conditions  of  this  kind. 

But  it  is  only  the  first  of  these  conceptions  that  can  be 
opposed  to  freedom  in  any  sense  of  the  term,  and  this  is  iden- 
tical with  the  notion  of  mechanical  cause,  which  is  conceived 
either  as  one  event  producing  another,  or  as  one  external  force 
determining  the  action  of  another.  It  is  even  open  to  serious 
question  whether  this  is  a  true  conception  of  a  cause  at  all.* 
But  Ave  sliall  not  quarrel  with  usage.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
no  frecdomist  in  admitting  the  causation  of  volitions  conceives  it 
as  merely  the  jx-oduction  of  one  event  by  another,  except  per- 
haps those  who  speak  of  the  motive  as  the  cause.     At  any  rate 

*  PhilonopJucal  Review,  \o\.  1 1 1.,  pp.  l-KJ.  Artulc:  h'anl's  T/iird  Anti- 
nomy. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WHL  177 

cause  used  in  the  second  sense  is  perfectly  compatible  with  free- 
dom, though  it  does  not  establish  anything  more  than  the  free- 
dom of  spontaneity. 

2.  The  Distinction  between  the  Freedom  of  Voli- 
tions AND  the  Freedom  of  the  Will. — We  constantly 
speak  of  our  acts  as  free  as  if  they  were  such  in  the  same  sense 
that  the  will  is  free.  But,  strictly  speaking,  this  is  not  the  case. 
A  volition  is  an  event,  and  as  such  is  necessitated  by  an  antece- 
dent. That  is  to  say,  given  the  antecedent  the  volition  must  take 
place,  and  hence  the  necessity  would  seem  to  contradict  its  free- 
dom. But  the  fact  is,  such  freedom  as  volitions  may  be  said  to 
have,  is  a  derived  or  a  borrowed  freedom,  reflected  merely  from 
the  freedom  of  the  agent  of  whom  they  are  the  acts.  This  is  the 
reason  that  we  can  admit  that  all  acts  of  will  are  "  caused,"  and 
as  acts  come  from  a  cause  external  to  themselves,  but  it  is  not 
"  caused  ; "  that  is,  pi-oduced  or  brought  into  existence  at  the  time, 
by  some  other  event  or  thing.  The  will  is  more  or  less  permanent, 
as  the  subject  of  volitions  and  is  a  cause  of  them,  as  an  ante- 
cedent which  can  originate  them,  though  they  are  caused  with- 
out any  ability  to  originate  themselves.  We  speak  of  their 
freedom  only  in  the  sense  that  they  can  be  prevented  by  the  sub- 
ject, who  is  not  absolutely  conditioned  hy  any  antecedent  event  at 
the  time. 

This  distinction  between  free  acts  and  free  will  must  be  kept 
clear  under  all  circumstances,  since  it  enables  us,  if  we  like,  to 
admit  determinism  or  necessitarianism  of  any  kind  we  choose  in 
regard  to  volition,  while  denying  it  of  the  will.  A  volition  is  an 
act,  an  event,  a  phenomenon,  having  a  beginning  in  time  and 
originated  by  something  else  than  itself,  and  so  may  be  necessi- 
tated to  that  extent.  The  will  is  not  an  event,  act,  or  phenome- 
non having  its  beginning  immediately  antecedent  to  the  volition. 
It  is  simply  the  subject  or  agent  of  the  volition.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  regard  it  as  a  separate  faculty  of  the  mind,  as  probably 
some  psychologists  have  conceived  it.  It  may  be  considered  as 
the  name  of  the  whole  mind  in  a  certain  relation,  or  exercising 
a  certain  function,  namelv,  that  of  choice  and  volition.     Hence 


ITS  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

it  is  the  subject  of  actions  wliicli  it  causes  in  itself.  Now,  it  will 
be  free  when  it  acts  independently  of  external  forces,  while  a 
volition,  as  such,  cannot  be  free  in  the  sense  of  spontaneously  oc- 
curring, or  of  spontaneously  originating  any  other  event.  This 
analysis  explains  the  paradox  we  have  already  remarked  in  the 
philosophy  of  Kant.  It  will  be  remembered  that  he  said  the  will 
as  a  phenomenon  is  determined,  but  as  a  noumenon  or  thing  in 
itself,  is  free.  Translated  into  common  language  this  is  only  to 
say  that  volition,  the  Avill  as  a  phenomenon,  is  caused  by  some- 
thing external  to  itself,  but  that  the  will  as  subject,  as  a  nou- 
menon or  thing  in  itself,  is  not  caused  or  determined ;  that  is, 
created  at  the  time  that  it  produces  a  volition.  It  is  a  free  cause 
in  the  sense  that  it  spontaneously  originates  something,  even 
though  the  occasion  for  it  is  some  external  stimulus.  The  external 
influence  may  make  it  necessary  to  act,  or  perhaps  prudent  to  do 
so,  but  it  does  not  determine  what  the  act  shaU  be  or  the  direc- 
tion of  it.     This  is  an  original  spontaneity  of  the  mind. 

8.  The  Uxiformity  and  Predictability  of  Events  is 
NOT  A  Proof  of  their  Necessity. — The  plausibility  of  the 
argument  for  necessitarianism  here  criticised  is  derived  wholly 
from  its  comparison  with  the  uniformity  of  nature  where  neces- 
sity is  unquestioned.  But  the  comparison  is  illusory.  It  is  not 
the  mere  fact  of  uniformity  in  nature  that  proves  the  necessity  of 
the  events  so  caused,  but  it  is  the  nature  of  the  causes  ojierating. 
Our  conception  of  a  physical  cause  is  that  of  an  unconscious  force 
incapable  of  choosing  l)etween  alternatives,  and  hence  we  can 
conceive  only  one  cfiect  possible  in  the  case.  Consequently, 
when  we  obser^'^e  what  is  evidently  the  effect  of  mechanical  forces, 
wlictlier  uniform  or  not,  we  adjudge  it  as  necessary.  But  its 
uniformity  does  not  determine  the  nature  of  its  cause.  Physical 
forces  must  produce  uniform  effects,  Init  uniformity  is  not  a 
proof  of  necessity.  This  is  to  say,  that  necessary  agencies  are 
unif  )rm,  but  uniform  agencies  arc  not  convertible  with  the  neces- 
sary. Uniform  actions  may  exist  without  being  necessary  in  any 
sense  tliat  tliere  could  be  no  alternative  to  them. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  it  Is  natural  to  infer  necessary  where 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  179 

we  observe  uniform  connection.  In  fact,  uniformity  is,  in  the 
last  analysis  of  our  knowledge,  the  evidence  upon  which  we  de- 
pend for  our  belief  in  necessary  connection.  "We  probably  learn 
that  matter  acts  through  necessary  causes  from  our  observation 
of  the  fact  of  uniformity  in  its  conduct.  But  we  must  remember 
that  the  inference  drawn  from  uniform  to  necessary  connection 
is  only  an  inductive  one  and  at  most  cannot  go  beyond  a  proba- 
bility. But  it  is  not  demonstrative  proof  of  necessity ;  and  as 
long  as  it  is  not  this,  it  is  open  to  conceive  some  other  than  a 
necessary  agent  as  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon.  Hence  human 
volitions  might  be  ever  so  uniform,  as  in  rational  beings  they 
would  be,  without  entitling  us  to  suppose  that  they  were  ne- 
cessitated. The  only  necessity  that  is  opposed  to  freedom  is  the 
necessity  of  physical  causation,  which  does  not  deliberate,  and  is 
not  conscious  either  of  the  end  to  which  it  moves  or  of  any  pos- 
sible alternative.  But  the  will  itself,  not  being  necessitated  at 
the  time  of  its  action,  prevents  the  act  from  being  necessary,  how- 
ever uniform  it  may  be. 

If  asked,  what  then  is  the  evidence  of  free  will,  we  can  only 
say  that  we  are  not  yet  required  to  state  this.  Our  present  duty 
is  fulfilled  if  we  show  that  uniform  action  does  not  exclude  free- 
dom, so  that  reference  to  habit,  uniformity  of  conduct,  as  in 
suicide,  illegitimacy,  etc.,  and  predictability  of  human  conduct, 
as  proving  necessitarianism,  can  be  repudiated  as  a  pditio  jyrm- 
cipii.  It  is  sufficient  for  the  present  to  maintain  a  verdict  of 
"  not  proven  "  against  that  theory. 

4.  The  Relation  of  Motives  to  Volition  and  to 
THE  Will. — The  argument  against  freedom  from  the  preva- 
lence of  the  strongest  motive  derives  its  plausibility  and  strength 
from  two  facts  :  first,  from  the  old  beliefs  that  motives  are  the 
causes  of  volition,  and  second,  from  their  comparison  in  this 
formula  with  the  resultant  of  physical  forces.  If  two  forces  com- 
pete with  each  other,  the  stronger  must  prevail  and  determines 
Avhat  the  efi'ect  shall  be.  Hence,  if  two  motives  offer  different 
attractions  to  the  will,  it  is  very  natural  to  resort  to  the  compari- 
son with  conflicting   physical   forces  in   order  to  explain   the 


180  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

effect.  But  the  comparison,  though  a  very  happy  one  for  its 
purposes,  is  wholly  an  illusory  one  in  regard  to  the  central  ques- 
tion at  issue.  It  wholly  mistakes  the  nature  of  a  motive  and  its 
relation  to  volition.  A  careful  examination  of  these  facts  will 
modify  the  argument  based  upon  the  analogy  to  which  reference 
has  been  made. 

In  the  first  place,  however,  it  is  open  to  the  freedomist  to 
question  the  strict  propriety  of  the  expression  "strongest 
motive,"  as  at  once  calculated  to  lead  the  mind  astray.  In  so 
far  as  motives^re  ideas  of  ends,  we  do  not  see  how  the  attribute 
of  "  strength  "  can  be  ascribed  to  them  at  all.  Ideas  are  not 
distinguished  by  degrees  of  strength  as  forces  are.  The  term  ap- 
plies to  them  only  in  a  metaphorical  sense.  Then,  in  so  far  as 
motives  are  desires  they  are  more  properly  distinguished  by 
preferences  than  by  strength,  so  that  again  the  term  is  metaphor- 
ical and  misleads  us  by  a  false  comparison  with  physical  forces. 
But  the  convenience  of  the  expression  and  the  fixity  of  it  in 
established  usage  is  such  that  it  is  not  easy  to  dislodge  it,  and  it 
is  not  necessary  to  do  so  as  long  as  we  can  eliminate  its  influ- 
ence by  showing  the  mistaken  assumptions  at  the  basis  of  it. 
Hence  we  may  admit,  so  far  as  the  argument  is  concerned,  that 
the  strongest  motive  will  always  prevail  when  we  mean  only 
that  the  consciousness  of  a  preferred  interest  or  duty  will  deter- 
mine, that  is,  decide  the  volition.  We  can  then  criticise  the 
doctrine  assumed  in  it. 

We  said  that  necessitarians,  in  so  far  as  they  rely  upon  the 
idea  that  the  strongest  motive  must  determine  volition,  assume, 
either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  that  motives  are  causes  of 
volition.  The  tendency  to  this  assumption  is  inherited  from  that 
periled  when  they  were  regarded  in  no  other  light,  and  when 
even  instincts  could  be  considered  as  "motives."  The  very 
term  is  drawn  from  mechanical  science  and  carries  with  it  me- 
chanical associations.  In  mechanics  "  motive  "  is  a  force  which 
ini[)cls  machinery,  and  so  is  an  antecedent  cause  of  motion. 
Thus  steam,  gas,  water,  electricity  are  "  motives"  or  "motive" 
forces,  though  recent  usage,  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  the  practice 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  181 

of  the  moral  sciences,  where  the  term  implies  purpose  as  well, 
inclines  to  adopt  the  phrase  motor  forces  instead.  Hence  in  the 
physical  sciences  "  motives  "  are  causes.  But  in  moral  science 
the  term  expresses,  as  already  defined,  first  an  idea  of  an  end, 
in  which  there  is  no  causal  force  whatever,  and  second  an  ele- 
ment of  desire  which  expresses  an  order  of  preference  rather 
than  of  force  or  cause,  though  it  is  unquestionably  very  inti- 
mately related  to  volition.  But  the  question  whether  it  is  the 
cause  of  it  in  any  sense  whatever  depends,  in  the  last  analysis, 
uj^on  the  farther  question  whether  the  volition  can  be  distin- 
guished in  all  instances  from  the  motive.  The  term  "  volition  " 
is,  after  all,  an  ambiguous  one.  It  sometimes  denotes  the  mus- 
cular movement  of  the  body  immediately  initiated  by  the  will ; 
again  it  more  frequently  denotes  the  executive  or  determining 
act  which  results  in  a  muscular  movement.  This  is  the  concep- 
tion of  it  which  distinguishes  it  from  choice,  which  is  also  an  act 
of  will,  and  is  a  volition,  though  it  is  not  an  executive  volition. 
An  executive  volition  is  merely  the  act  of  will  which  mediates 
between  an  internal  decision  and  the  external  act  necessary  to 
realize  it,  but  it  is  not  the  only  act  of  the  will  which  involves 
the  question  of  freedom  or  which  can  be  called  voluntary.  In 
this  respect  the  choice  is  also  a  volition  :  it  is  a  voluntary  de- 
termination between  two  alternatives  and  employs  the  whole 
function  of  the  will  as  a  free  and  moral  agent.  The  executive 
act  is  responsible  only  for  the  objective  result,  not  for  the  choice 
which  determines  the  character  of  the  agent.  Now,  it  is  inter- 
esting to  observe  that  no  one  ever  .speaks  of  the  motive  as  deter- 
mining or  causing  the  choice.  We  speak  of  the  reason  for  a 
choice,  or  of  the  preference  which  it  indicates,  but  not  of  any- 
thing that  would  imply  a  dynamic  powei*  on  the  part  of  the 
"  motive  "  to  produce  the  choice,  and  yet  it  is  an  act  of  the  will 
requiring  as  much  of  a  "  motive  "  cause,  if  such  is  ever  required, 
as  a  volition  is  supposed  to  have.  The  whole  question  of  free- 
dom must  be  decided,  not  merely  by  concluding  whether  a  man 
can  perform  this  or  that  volition  or  not,  but  also  by  settling 
whether  he  can  choose  or  not.     If  he  is  not  free  he  cannot 


182  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

choose,  but  if  he  can  choose  between  alternatives,  the  fartlier 
question  is  Avhether  the  motive  is  the  efficient  or  dynamic  rather 
than  the  final  cause  of  the  choice.  The  former,  hoAvever,  no  one 
seems  inclined  to  assert.  Unless  the  condition  of  choice  be  dy- 
namic or  efficient  there  is  no  ground  for  laying  any  stress  upon 
the  strongest  motive,  simply  because  the  whole  problem  of  free- 
dom has  to  be  decided  before  we  reach  the  phenomenon  of  ex- 
ecutive volition.  But  as  we  seem  only  to  have  reasons,  not  mo- 
tives, for  choice,  the  only  question  is  whether  desire,  which  is  one 
of  the  two  fundamental  elements  of  motives,  must  issue  in  voli- 
tion before  a  choice  can  be  made.  If  it  must,  the  argument 
would  be  stronger  against  freedom  ;  if  not,  as  is  generally,  if  not 
always,  the  case,  the  argument  is  altogether  in  favor  of  freedom. 
Again,  there  is  another  way  of  considering  the  relation  of  the 
two  facts.  Assuming  that  motives  are  antecedents  and  volitions 
consequents,  we  see  that  there  may  be  the  same  uniform  order 
and  relation  between  them  that  in  nature  generally  gives  rise  to 
the  supposition  that  the  antecedent  is  the  cause;  and  as  the 
motive  can  in  no  manner  be  eliminated  from  rational  actions  the 
notion  that  they  are  causes  seems  to  be  very  strong.  But  there 
is  an  illusion  here,  due,  first  to  a  merely  accidental  resemblance 
between  this  series  of  events  and  those  in  nature  where  the  infer- 
ence from  antecedent  to  cause  is  justifiable,  though  we  must 
remeralier  that  it  does  not  carry  with  it  its  own  proof;  and  in  the 
second  place,  to  disregarding  the  relation  between  the  mind  and 
its  motives  and  volitions.  It  is  a  very  important  fact  in  this  dis- 
cussion that  the  motive  is  as  much  the  product  of  the  mind  as  is 
the  volition.  They  are  both  phenomena  or  functions  of  the  same 
subject,  so  that  it  is  at  least  difficult  to  see  how  one  can  possibly 
be  tlie  cause  of  tlic  other.  If  tlic  motive  were  some  event  apart 
from  tlic  mind  and  produced  tlio  volition,  the  supposition  of 
its  causal  character  would  be  a  much  more  tenable  one.  But 
so  far  from  this  being  the  case,  the  motive  is  always  a  product 
of  tlic  mind,  and  so  also  is  the  volition,  tlic  two  being  only  in 
the  position  oi'  invarialile  concomitants.  If  tlie  motive  is  to  be 
the  cause  we  must  supixjse  that  it  acts  on  the  mind  after  the 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  183 

mind  has  produced  it  itself,  aud  that  somehow  the  volition  must 
be  the  product  of  the  mind  or  will  aud  the  effect  of  the  motive 
at  the  same  time.  The  fact  is,  that  the  mind  is  the  cause  of 
both  phenomena,  rather  than  one  of  them  being  the  cause  of 
the  other.  Now,  as  the  motive  is  the  product  of  the  mind  and 
not  of  external  stimulus — that  is,  the  whole  nature  and  con- 
tent of  the  motive  is  the  creation  of  the  mind — there  must  at 
least  be  the  freedom  of  spontaneity  in  originating  this  phenom- 
enon itself,  at  least  its  force  and  character,  if  not  the  reason 
for  its  occurrence,  so  that  there  is  still  a  way  open  for  delib- 
eration as  between  the  rise  of  desire  and  the  occurrence  of 
volition,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  direct  product  of  the 
will,  and  this  deliberation  cuts  off  the  chance  of  a  causal  nexus 
between  the  motive  and  the  volition.  Consequently  when  the 
mind  deliberates  between  a  desire  and  a  volition  the  motive 
cannot  be  a  cause,  and  if  it  is  not  always  a  cause,  there  is  no 
reason  to  supjiose  that  it  is  at  any  time  of  the  nature  of  a 
causal  influence,  but  only  an  index  of  the  mind's  nature  and  a 
concomitant  of  its  volitions.  JMoreover,  it  is  possible  to  contend 
that  the  motive  or  desire  is  always  the  same  and  has  the  same 
ultimate  end  in  view  with  a  given  individual,  while  it  is  the 
means  to  this  end  which  vary  and  present  alternatives.  Conse- 
quently if  the  motive  be  the  same  and  is  the  cause  of  the  choice 
and  volition,  these  latter  should  always  be  the  same.  But  they 
are  different,  so  that  some  other  power  has  to  be  iuvoked  to 
account  for  the  result  than  the  causal  influence  of  the  motive. 
The  causal  agency  of  the  mind  and  will  in  the  production  of 
both  events  alike  is  this  power,  and  it  is  neither  created  by  the 
motive  nor  determined  causally  in  its  action  by  anything  except 
its  own  nature,  and  that  is  all  that  the  doctrine  of  freedom  asks 
for.  The  nature  of  a  thing  can  just  as  well  be  free  as  it  can  be 
anything  else.  Of  course,  it  may  require  to  be  proved  by  better 
evidence  than  its  a  j^^'iori  possibility,  and  this  may  be  forth- 
coming in  the  positive  arguments.  But  for  the  present  it  suffices 
to  note  that  the  argument  from  the  influence  of  stronger  motives 
does  not  stand  in  the  way  of  the  supposition  of  freedom,  because 


184  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

tlie  conception  of  the  causality  of  motive.?,  lurking  at  the  basis  of 
it,  is  an  illusion  ;  at  least,  any  such  causality  as  supposes  a 
direct  dynamic  effect  on  volition  without  supposing  the  inter- 
mediate free  agency  of  the  mind  or  will. 

5.  The  Equivocal  Nature  of  the  Argument  from  Char- 
acter.— The  generally  admitted  supposition  that  a  man  will  act 
according  to  his  character  gets  its  force  wholly  from  an  illusion 
created  partly  by  an  equivocation  in  the  term  "  character  "  and 
partly  by  assuming  the  whole  question  in  supposing  that  the 
"  character  "  of  the  mind  is  necessarily  fixed  in  the  same  sense 
as  that  of  material  objects.     Now,  the  term  "  character "  can 
mean  only  two  things  apart  from  its  etymological  import,  which 
is  that  of  a  sign  or  mark  by  which  a  thing  may  be  identified. 
First,  it  may  denote  the  unijormitij  of  imj  actions  and  jnivj^oses, 
and  second,  the  nature  of  my  being  as  expressed  in  actions.     In 
the  first  of  these  meanings  it  is  apparent  that  character  is  only  a 
name  for  the  way  in  which  I  do  act,  not  the  name  for  a  cause  of 
my  action,  or  fi)r  the  way  I  m\(st  act.     In  fact  moral  character, 
ever  since  Aristotle,  has  expressed  what  the  will  produces  itself, 
not  what  either  produces  the  will  or  causes  volition.     The  Avill 
gives  rise  to  "  character  "  in  the  first  sense,  so  that  even  if  it  be 
reo-arded  as  the  cause  of  the  volition,  the  freedom  of  the  Avill 
would  not  be  interfered  with  by  this  relation.     But  being  only 
a  name  for  the  uniformity  of  actual  volition,  while  it  is  regarded 
as  the  product  of  the  will,  it  can  in  no  sense  be  said  to  deter- 
mine volition,  but  rather  perhaps  to  be  produced  by  it. 

The  second  meaning  of  the  term  to  express  the  fixed  nature  of 
the  subject,  as  evidenced  by  the  uniformity  of  volition,  is  nnich 
more  forcible  in  the  case.  We  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  and 
thinking  that  matter  must  act  according  to  its  nature  and  that 
it  cannot  act  otherwise,  these  modes  of  expression  being  taken  as 
identical  with  the  necessity  of  its  actions.  Ilcnce,  when  we 
apply  the  same  formula  to  the  mind  we  carry  with  it  the  same 
iiniiliration.  But  while  it  might  be  true  that  the  mind  must  act 
ticc.Mtliiig  to  its  nature,  that  "nature"  might  be  free,  and  it  may 
be  begging  the  (picstion  to  assume  that  it  is  like  material  objects 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  185 

in  this  respect.  Freedom  could  be  as  much  a  part  of  the  nature 
or  "character"  of  a  subject  as  necessity,  so  that  the  mere  term 
does  not  carry  with  it  any  necessary  limitations  upon  mental 
capacity.  Moreover,  we  may  ask  whether  a  free  agent  could  be 
supposed  to  act  in  any  other  way  than  according  to  his  "  charac- 
ter "  or  nature.  If  the  necessity  of  acting  according  to  one's 
nature  is  opposed  to  freedom,  then  to  be  free  one  must  7iot  act 
according  to  his  nature.  Now,  in  the  first  place,  while  not  act- 
ing according  to  one's  nature  might  ^;?-ore  that  our  nature  did 
not  coerce  us,  this  condition  is  not  necessary  to  the  case.  The 
proof  of  freedom  is  not  a  necessary  condition  of  its  existence.  It 
may  exist  under  conditions  that  betray  no  evidence  of  it.  Of 
course,  we  require  proof  of  it  before  asserting  it,  but  the  absence 
of  that  specific  proof  does  not  justif}'  us  in  denying  the  fact  of 
freedom  which  may  exist  independently  of  the  proof  of  it.  But 
in  the  second  place,  not  to  press  the  first  case,  if  a  free  agent  does 
not  act  according  to  his  nature  it  must  be  either  because  he  acts 
according  to  the  nature  of  something  else  or  because  his  own 
nature  counts  for  nothing  in  the  eflfect.  Under  the  first  of  these 
two  conditions  he  certainly  would  not  be  free  (objective  deter- 
minism). But  every  one  admits  that  a  man  is  the  cause  of  his 
own  volitions,  otherwise  they  are  not  volitions  at  all,  and  hence 
no  one  believes  that,  when  he  causes  his  own  volitions,  he  acts 
according  to  any  other  nature  than  his  own.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  to  be  free  a  man's  nature  must  count  for  nothing  in  his  actions, 
then  it  follows  either  that  a  free  nature  could  not  conceivably  be 
the  cause  of  its  own  actions,  or  that  no  nature  at  all  is  required 
to  bring  about  a  volition,  or  that  man  does  not  and  cannot  act 
at  all.  Every  one  of  these  suppositions  are  so  manifestly  absurd, 
so  contrary  to  fact  and  conception,  that  we  can  only  believe  that 
action  according  to  one's  nature,  and  the  necessity  of  such  action, 
does  not  stand  in  the  way  of  freedom,  because  for  aught  that  we 
know  that  nature  may  be  free. 

Why,  then,  do  we  feel  the  force  of  the  argument  against  fi-ee- 
dom  when  we  see  the  limitations  of  character  asserted?  We 
unquestionably  commiserate,  and  to  some  extent  excuse,  the  con- 


186  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

firmed  druukarcl  for  liis  habits,  tbe  habitual  criminal  for  his 
temptations,  and  the  passionate  man  for  his  explosions  of  feeling 
and  passion.  It  would  seem  that  nature  and  character  do  im- 
pose limitations  upon  choice  in  spite  of  the  apparent  conclusive- 
ness of  the  criticism  we  have  just  advanced.  But  here  is  where 
the  illusion  arises  from  the  two  meanings  of  the  term.  There 
are  two  opposite  propositions  which  can  be  affirmed  and  both  of 
which  can  be  true  at  the  same  time,  when  allowance  is  made  for 
the  equivocation  of  one  of  their  terms.  Thus  if  "  character  "  ex- 
presses the  nature  of  the  subject,  then  the  necessity  of  acting 
according  to  that  nature  is  not  opposed  to  freedom,  and  we 
should  irot  expect  the  subject  to  act  otherwise  or  to  be  able  to 
act  otherwise.  On  the  other  hand,  if  "character"  expresses 
nothing  but  one's  actual  habits,  the  necessity  of  action  according 
to  those  would  limit  freedom.  But  we  expect  men,  at  least,  to 
be  able  to  act  otherwise  than  they  actually  do,  because  we  con- 
ceive that  it  is  they  and  not  their  habits  ("  character  ")  that  are 
the  cause  of  their  volitions.  That  is  to  say,  a  man  can  act  other- 
wise than  according  to  his  actual  habits,  though  he  cannot  act 
otherwise  than  his  nature  determines.  The  former  condition 
proves  his  freedom  and  the  latter  does  not  oppose  it.  The  only 
action  determined  by  character  which  would  not  be  free  is  that 
which  would  be  caused  by  habits.  But  as  no  one  even  suspects 
this  condition  of  things  there  is  no  excuse  for  the  argument 
except  the  illusion  produced  by  the  equivocal  meaning  of  "  char- 
acter." 

G.  The  Limitations  of  Heredity. — The  argument  against 
freedom  from  the  fact  of  heredity  is  by  far  the  strongest  one  to 
which  the  necessitarian  can  api)cal.  We  certainly  feel  that 
inherited  tendencies  place  limitations  upon  what  we  can  expect 
of  the  individual  who  is  affected  by  tlicm.  Hereditary  tendencies 
to  drink,  to  commit  crime,  to  practice  vice,  to  lead  a  life  of  idle- 
ness and  poverty,  or  to  act  in  any  other  particular  way,  arc  cer- 
tainly handicapping  qualities  in  the  struggle  for  existence  which 
seem  to  condemn  the  individual  to  a  course  that  is  not  only  op- 
posed to  his  interests,  but  also  appears  beyond  his  reach  and  our 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  1«7 

expectations  of  his  capacity  to  realize,  while  the  inheritance  of 
the  opposite  qualities  makes  the  individual  quite  as  much  of 
an  automaton,  and  insures  that  his  virtues  shall  be  too  natural 
to  deserve  the  credit  of  those  which  accompany  a  struggle  and 
involve  freedom.  Hence  we  are  not  disposed  to  slur  over  this 
argument.  Bat  it  is  proper  to  define  its  limitations,  and  possibly 
to  show  that  it  circumscribes  responsibility  more  than  it  does 
freedom. 

In  the  first  place,  the  strength  of  the  argument  lies  in  its  com- 
bination of  that  from  the  causal  nature  of  motives  and  of  that 
from  the  necessity  of  acting  in  accordance  Avith  one's  character, 
and  adds  to  it  the  notion  that  the  specific  tendency  is  not  due  to 
the  habits  or  will  of  the  individual  subject.  This  makes  the  ar- 
gument from  heredity  rather  striking.  But  there  is  a  qualifica- 
tion which  weakens  it  somewhat  when  w'e  return  to  the  previous 
discussions,  where  we  attempted  to  show  that  motives  are  not 
causes  and  that  action  according  to  one's  nature  is  not  neces- 
sarily opposed  to  freedom.  It  all  depends  on  what  that  nature 
is.  These  opinions  need  not  be  restated.  It  is  enough  to  limit 
the  argument  from  heredity  by  showing  the  doubtful  character 
of  its  assumptions.  But  there  are  at  least  two  other  facts  bear- 
ing upon  its  inconclusiveness.  The  first  is  that  the  general  doc- 
trine and  conception  of  heredity  does  not  hinder  us  from  suppos- 
ing that  freedom  itself  might  be  inherited.  Grant  that  some 
persons  are  not  free,  owing  to  inherited  disposition  in  special 
directions,  could  not  some  inherit  that  balanced  nature  which 
freedom  is  supposed  to  imply  ?  As  for  myself,  I  see  nothing  in 
the  mere  fact  of  hei'edity  to  oppose  it  to  freedom,  but  it  must 
show  tendencies  which  are  as  fixed  and  as  uncontrollable  as  blind 
instincts  in  order  to  wholly  dislodge  freedom.  The  second  fact 
is  more  important,  and  it  grows  out  of  the  last  remark.  Heredity, 
in  cases  even  of  the  worst  kind,  docs  not  show  impulses  or  ten- 
dencies that  are  absolutely  unmodifiable  by  the  individual.  Even 
the  so-called  blind  instincts  are  often  variable  with  environment. 
Hereditary  deviations  from  normal  life  do  not,  perhaps,  in  any 
cases  show  absolute  inadjustabiiity  to  environment  or  to  condi- 


188  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

tioiis  that  affect  the  personal  ^yelfare  of  tLe  subject.  If  they  did 
show  this,  if  they  represented  an  absolutely  fixed  impulse  or 
instinct  that  could  not  regulate  the  time  or  place  of  its  gratifica- 
tion, we  might  talk  about  the  want  of  freedom.  But  this  is,  per- 
haps, never  the  case.  Hereditary  criminal  and  vicious  tenden- 
cies are  often  accompanied  by  as  much  deliberation,  calmness, 
and  judicious  selection  of  opportune  times  and  places  as  the 
sanest  minds  avouM  exhibit,  and  this  only  proves  that  their  incli- 
nations are  not  wholly  uncontrollable.  No  doubt  their  strong 
temptations  and  the  handicaj)ping  influence  of  persistent  desires 
against  the  will  are  palliating  circumstances  w'hen  we  come  to 
take  account  of  their  responsibilities  and  the  need  of  an  environ- 
ment which  might  offer  competing  motives  with  those  that  are 
predominant.  But  they  are  not  a  disproof  of  the  agent's  free- 
dom, because  if  the  external  environment  be  made  sufficiently  press- 
ing at  the  right  point  hereditary  inclinations  will  almost  invariably 
yield  to  it,  which  could  never  be  the  case  if  the  agent  had  no  cajMC- 
ityfor  this  adjustment.  This  is  only  to  say  that  the  retention  of 
the  capacity  for  conscious  adjustment  to  environment  on  the  part 
of  those  who  are  burdened  with  specific  hereditary  tendencies, 
disturbing  the  balance  of  sane  and  healthy  functions,  is  all  that 
is  necessary  for  the  possession  of  at  least  a  measure  of  freedom. 
Moreover,  granting  that  some  are  not  so  qualified,  we  cannot 
argue  from  the  excejjtional  and  abnormal  case  to  the  normal,  be- 
cause it  may  be  that  freedom  is  the  very  distinction  between 
them.  The  argument  from  heredity,  therefore,  has  very  decided 
limitations. 

7.  Environment  Limits  Responsibility  and  not  Free- 
dom.— Very  little  needs  to  be  said  in  order  to  dislodge  the 
argument  from  environment  against  freedom.  The  doctrine  of 
heredity  derives  its  force  from  tlie  fact  that  it  refers  wholly 
to  influences  within  the  nature  of  Ihi'  iii(livi(Uial.  JUit  environ- 
ment is  wholly  an  external  medium  and  the  argument  from 
it  must  be  confined  to  objective  determinism,  which  no  one 
admits.  Environment  does  undoubtedly  impose  decided  limita- 
ti(jii.s  upon  our  libeity,  (^r  })]iysicu-})oliticul  freedom  as  defined, 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  189 

and  tlierefore  limits  responsibility,  but  it  does  not  determine 
volitions.  If  we  adjust  ourselves  to  it,  the  act  represents  our 
choice  of  the  prudent  ratlier  than  the  imprudent,  but  not  a  loss 
of  freedom.  The  determinist  here  imagines  that  in  order  to 
be  free  we  should  be  able  to  choose  either  alternative  Avith 
impunity,  but  in  assuming  this  he  has  the  physico-political  con- 
ception of  freedom,  that  is,  liberty,  in  view,  and  not  velleity  or 
the  capacity  of  alternative  choice,  which  is  the  question  at 
issue.  It  is  true  that  the  subject  has  not  the  former  capacity, 
but  he  can  choose  either  to  adjust  himself  to  environment,  or  to 
overcome  it,  and  this  establishes  his  velleity  so  far  as  external 
influences  are  concerned.  But  his  responsibility  is  very  much 
modified. 

8.  The  Confusion  of  Prescience  and  Predestination, 
— We  shall  not,  in  a  treatise  of  Ethics,  examine  the  merits  a'nd 
demerits  of  the  theological  questions  growing  out  of  the  doctrine 
of  predestination.  But  apart  from  those  its  relation  to  freedom 
may  be  briefly  discussed.  If  volitions  are  absolutely  pre- 
destined there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  will  is  not  free,  because 
predestination  of  this  kind  is  fatalism  pure  and  simple.  But 
mere  prescience  of  them  is  not  opposed  to  freedom.  It  is 
merely  foreknowledge  of  what  will  take  place,  not  the  causation 
of  it.  But  to  fix  the  occurrence  of  an  event  beyond  any 
prevention  whatever  is  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  any  agent  con- 
nected with  it,  because  such  an  agent  would  be  the  mere  instru- 
ment or  medium,  not  the  original  cause  of  the  event,  which 
he  should  be  in  order  to  have  any  form  of  freedom  whatever. 
However,  the  theological  doctrine  of  predestination  does  not 
always  take  this  form,  and  it  may  be  seriously  questioned 
whether,  when  it  does,  it  has  any  canonic  authority  for  its  view 
of  predestined  volitions.  With  St.  Paul  predestination  most 
probably  was  limited  to  the  fixing  beforehand  of  man's  salva- 
tion, or  lot  hereafter,  conditioned  on  a  foreknowledge  of  what 
he  would  do.  This  is  not  the  predestination  of  his  volitions,  but 
only  of  the  consequences  of  foreknown  volitions,  which  is  a  very 
different  thing. 


190  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

2d.  Positive 'Arguments — The  negative  arguments  were  said 
merely  to  modify  or  remove  the  difficulties  involved  in  the 
objections  to  freedom,  and  now  we  come  to  such  arguments  as 
create  more  positive  support  for  the  doctrine.  Like  the  others 
they  have  their  limitations.  They  do  not  mean  to  prove,  where 
they  are  supposed  to  prove  anything  at  all,  that  all  persons  are 
free,  or  equally  free,  but  only  that  where  certain  conditions  are 
fulfilled  freedom  can  fairly  be  entitled  to  exist.  There  may  be 
many  exceptions.  But  if  any  genuine  cases  of  freedom  exist,  we 
have  a  basis  for  a  rational  system  of  Ethics  and  practical  prin- 
cijiles  for  the  territory  covered  by  those  conditions.  Nor  do 
they  all  apply  to  the  same  kind  of  freedom,  as  will  be  re- 
marked when  discussing  them. 

1.  The  Pkiority  of  Free  to  Necessary  Causation. — 
The  law  of  causation  is  supposed  to  imply  necessity  of  some 
kind,  and  so  it  does;  but  is  only  the  necessity  of  the  effect, 
not  the  necessity  of  the  cause.  It  is  the  effect  which  must 
occur  if  the  causes  act,  but  there  is  no  reason  in  that  fact  for 
suj^posing  that  the  cause  must  act  also.  If  there  be  any  neces- 
sity about  the  action  of  the  cause  in  the  case  it  Avill  be  for 
the  reason  that  it  too  is  an  effect  of  some  antecedent  cause,  and 
not  because  it  is  an  efficient  agency.  The  necessity  is  thus 
purely  relative  to  the  effect.  Let  us  illustrate.  If  a  stone  fall 
upon  a  hard  surface  it  will  very  certainly  make  a  noise  and 
probably  produce  some  additional  effects.  These  must  occur,  the 
conditions  being  what  they  are ;  there  is  no  alternative  to  them. 
They  are  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  stone's  falling.  But 
there,  is  nothing  implied  in  this  fact  to  the  effect  that  the  stone 
must  have  fallen.  The  necessity  of  the  effect  of  its  fall,  once  it 
is  set  in  motion,  does  not  prove  the  necessity  of  its  falling.  This 
may  liave  its  cause,  of  course;  but  we  should  not  seek  fur  it  if 
we  did  not  know  tluit  the  fall  was  an  event,  an  effect,  which  had 
its  beginning.  Its  necessity  dei)onds  wholly  upon  its  being 
an  effect.  But  perhaps  the  illustration  will  appear  more  forci- 
ble if  we  put  it  in  another  form.  If  I  strike  the  table  the  effect 
will  at  least  be  a  noise.     This  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  my 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  191 

act.  But  would  any  one  suspect  the  necessity  of  my  act  other 
than  its  being  the  effect  of  my  will  ? 

All  this  indicates  that  "necessity"  does  not  ex^n-ess  any  ab- 
solute form  of  action  or  condition,  but  only  the  relative  fixity 
of  events  when  their  causes  once  act.  There  must  be  some  orig- 
inal efficiency  which  is  not  an  effect  in  order  to  get  events  into 
existence  at  all,  so  that  necessary  phenomena  are  subsequent  to 
something  that  is  not  necessary.  In  this  way  we  indicate  that 
the  law  of  mechanical  causation  is  not  the  most  universal  law  of 
causal  agency,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  limited  to  the  necessary 
occurrence  of  the  effect  and  does  not  apply  to  the  action  of  an- 
tecedents, unless  they  too  are  effects.  But  it  can  never  apply 
to  causes  that  are  not  effects  or  events.  Free  or  spontaneous 
causation,  therefore,  must  be  prior  to  any  other  kind  as  a  condi- 
tion of  its  existence.    This  can  be  shown  in  the  following  manner : 

We  must  suppose  a  beginning  in  time  for  all  events  or  phe- 
nomena. They  are  not  events»unless  they  have  such  an  origin, 
and  it  is  on  the  ground  of  a  beginning  in  time  that  we  look  for  a 
cause  of  events.  Xow,  this  cause  must  be  either  an  antecedent 
event  or  something  which  is  not  an  event.  There  can  be  no 
third  alternative.  If  an  event  is  caused  by  an  antecedent  event, 
there  must  be  a  series  of  such  events,  and  this  series  must  be 
either  finite  or  infinite.  If  the  series  be  finite  it  has  a  beg-inninof 
in  time,  and  the  first  event  of  the  series  would  either  not  be 
caused  at  all,  in  which  case  it  would  have  a  free  or  non-necessi- 
tated origin,  or  its  cause  would  not  be  an  antecedent  event,  but 
something  else  than  an  event,  and  in  this  case  would  be  necessi- 
tated neither  in  its  existence  nor  its  action.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  the  series  is  infinite  it  has  no  beginning  in  time  and  there  is 
neither  a  first  event  in  the  series  nor  an  antecedent  event  to  the 
series  to  be  its  cause.  An  infinite  series,  therefore,  cannot  have 
an  event  in  time  for  its  cause,  but  must  be  conditioned  by  some- 
thing which  is  not  an  event.  We  say  nothing  about  the  impos- 
sibility of  an  infinite  scries  composed  of  finite  units.  This  may 
be  assumed  as  a  vantage  ground  to  prove  that  the  scries  must 
be  finite,  and  so  ultimately  caused  by  something  outside  of  it 


192  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  not  determined  by  au  event.  But  we  can  admit,  for  the 
sake  of  au  argument  at  least,  that  an  infinite  series  of  events 
is  possible ;  but  it  is  possible  only  on  the  supposition  that  the 
cause  of  the  series  is  not  an  event,  because  there  can  be  no  an- 
tecedent to  that  which  has  no  beginning  in  time.  Hence  the 
series,  whether  finite  or  infinite,  cannot  have  an  event  for  its 
cause.  That  is  to  say,  the  cause  must  be  that  which  is  itself  not 
caused,  and  so  must  be  free  or  spontaneous  in  its  action.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  the  cause  be  that  which  is  not  an  event  it  can- 
not be  subject  to  the  law  of  mechanical  causation,  which  would 
make  it  dependent  upon  an  antecedent,  which  it  is  not  in  the 
terms  of  the  conclusion  just  reached.  If  it  acts  at  all,  therefore, 
it  acts  spontaneously,  if  not,  there  will  be  no  event  to  account  for. 
But  all  agree  that  events  or  phenomena  are  admitted  facts. 
They  are  either  caused  or  not  caused.  If  caused,  they  ulti- 
mately depend,  as  the  previous  argument  shows,  upon  that 
which  is  not  caused,  but  free  or  sjiontaneous.  If  not  caused 
they  are  free  again,  or  cases  of  spontaneous  generation,  and  there 
is  no  need  to  admit  any  doctrine  of  causation  whatever.  Every- 
thing— that  is,  all  events — would  be  free  and  not  necessitated  ;  no 
antecedent  and  no  agent  would  cause  or  necessitate  them,  and 
we  should  have  spontaneity  at  the  expense  of  the  very  law  ol 
causation  which  is  supposed  to  nullify  the  claims  of  freedom. 
But  since  the  self-origination  of  events  without  a  subject  or 
ground  of  them  is  either  absurd  or  opposed  to  science  we  are  left 
to  suppose  them  caused  w'ith  the  consequence  previously  proved  ; 
that  ultimately  the  cause  must  be  something  which  is  not  an 
event,  and  which  will  not  itself  be  caused  unless  it  shows  the 
marks  of  an  effect  or  event ;  which  only  puts  the  absolute  one 
step  further  back.  And  this  absolute  and  spontaneous  cause 
must  be  found  either  because  the  finite  series  must  be  originated 
by  that  whicli  is  not  an  event  or  because  au  infinite  scries  can 
have  no  antecedent.  This,  of  course,  results  in  the  conclusion 
tliat  a  true  cause  is  not  an  antecedent  or  transcendental  thing  or 
phenomenon,  but  a  subject  wliich  is  contemporaneous  with  tlie 
act  or  inunanent  in  it. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  193 

It  is  apparent  from  this  argument  that  necessity  is  only  a 
property  of  evenU,  not  of  their  causes,  except  that  vre  apply  cause 
in  an  equivocal  sense  to  denote  an  antecedent  conditioning  the 
effect.  But  taken  as  the  agent  which  acts,  the  cause  is  not  neces- 
sitated, as  is  an  event  which  that  cause  produces.  If  it  act  at  all 
it  must  be  as  an  originating  cause,  and  hence  the  notion  of  free- 
dom has  both  the  logical  and  the  natural  priority  to  necessity. 
That  is  to  say,  as  a  property  of  existence  it  is  prior  to  necessity, 
so  that  every  theory  of  necessitarianism  must  be  of  the  relative 
and  wholly  subordinate  to  freedom  which  conditions  it.  It  must 
be  remarked,  however,  that  the  freedom  established  by  the  argu- 
ment is  not  the  freedom  of  velleity,  but  only  of  spontaneity.  The 
whole  force  of  the  argument  will  be  lost  if  we  suppose  that  it  can 
prove  the  capacity  for  alternative  choice.  It  does  nothing  of 
the  kind,  and  cannot  be  claimed  to  prove  more  than  spontaneity, 
and  those  who  rely  upon  it  to  make  out  the  case  against  deter- 
minism or  necessitarianism  of  every  form  are  following  a  will  x>' 
the  wisp ;  for  the  necessitarianism  which  is  generally  maintained 
only  opposes  velleity,  and  may  be  absolutely  identical  with  the 
notion  of  spontaneity  as  revealed  in  psycho-dynamic  and  instinc- 
tive actions,  supposing  that  the  latter  are  not  reflexes,  but  auto- 
matic. The  real  and  most  important  issue,  as  we  have  already 
indicated,  regards  velleity  or  the  capacity  of  alternative  choice. 

But  if  this  argument  does  not  prove  the  one  point  desirable, 
it  removes  all  a  priori  objections  to  freedom  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  law  of  causation.  It  is  the  universality  of  the 
law  of  causation,  or  rather  the  presumed  universality  of  it, 
and  conceived  mechanically  at  that,  which  creates  the  main 
difficulty  with  freedom  in  most  minds.  But  when  we  show, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  mechanical  causation  cannot  be  uni- 
versal, that  we  are  obliged  ultimately  to  accept  spontaneity 
or  free  agency  of  that  kind  as  prior  to  necessity,  and  on  the 
other,  that  causation  by  antecedent  events  is  not  the  true  or 
only  conception  of  cause,  we  have  j^roved  at  least  one  excep- 
tion to  the  principle  invoked  by  physical  science,  and  nothing 
after  that  exists  in  the  principle  to  prevent  us  from  adding  the 


194  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

capacity  of  alternative  clioice  to  the  idea  of  a  first  cause ;  that 
is,  adding  velleity  to  spontaneity,  if  only  there  be  evidence  forth- 
coming that  it  is  a  fact  as  well  as  a  possibility.  JMoreover,  the 
advantage  of  proving  spontaneity  in  this  way  is,  that  it  is  not 
conditioned  upon  a  spiritualistic  or  idealistic  view  of  things.  It 
is  perfectly  compatible  with  the  materialistic  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse :  in  fact,  must  be  assumed  by  that  theory  as  a  condition  of 
its  own  account  of  phenomena.  Materialism  and  mechanism, 
therefore,  cannot  stand  out  against  first  causes.  Whether  they 
are  consistent  with  alternative  choice  or  not  must  be  determined 
by  the  question  whether  matter  is  conscious  or  not.  Its  a  priori 
power,  however,  against  freedom  is  thoroughly  eviscerated  by 
the  necessity  of  its  assuming  spontaneity  and  surrendering  the 
absolute  universality  of  mechanical  causation.  With  this  con- 
clusion we  may  turn  to  the  evidence  for  freedom  as  the  capacity 
for  alternative  choice,  although  the  next  argument  has  a  bearing 
upon  both  kinds  of  psychological  freedom. 

2.  The  Fact  of  Deliberation. — Ever  since  the  time  of 
Aristotle  the  fact  of  deliberative  actions  has  played  an  important 
role  in  the  problem  of  freedom.  It  has,  in  fact,  been  made 
essential  to  real  freedom,  for  tlie  reason  that,  on  the  one  hand, 
it  is  contrasted  with  impulse  which  seems  to  represent  the  type 
of  reflex  actions,  and  presumably  not  free,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
it  seems  to  imply  that  equilibrium  between  motives  which  the 
indeterminist  conceived  as  essential  to  freedom.  It  is  easy  to  see 
why  deliberation  should  be  a  forcil)le  fact  in  the  case,  because  if 
a  volition  is  the  effect  of  a  "motive,"  it  should  follow  immedi- 
ately upon  the  occurrence  of  the  motive.  But  if  tlicrc  is  delib- 
eration between  "motives,"  they  do  not  seem  to  have  causal 
power  to  initiate  the  volition  until  a  prior  causal  power  directs 
them,iin<l  tliis  would  l)e  the  deliberating  subject.  It  was  natural, 
therefore,  when  the  conception  of  mechanical  causation  dominated 
the  age  in  which  resort  was  made  to  hesitation  between  alterna- 
tives, that  this  idea  of  deliberation  should  present  an  exception  to 
that  way  of  viewing  the  connection  of  events.  AVliether  the  argu- 
ment is  conclusive  or  not  we  liavc  yet  to  examine.     In  the  mean- 


THE  FREED02I  OF  THE  WILL  195 

time  we  have  two  things  to  accomplish  :  first,  to  define  what  is 
meant  by  deliberation,  and  second,  to  examine  the  various  kinds 
of  human  actions  which  are  concerned  in  the  problem.  AVe  can 
then  take  up  the  importance  of  deliberation  as  a  factor  in  con- 
duct. AVe  may  as  well  remark  also  that  its  force  is  not  the 
same  in  regard  to  all  kinds  of  freedom.  It  may  prove  only  sub- 
jective determinism  in  the  broad  sense,  or  merely  spontaneity. 
For  this  reason  we  shall  divide  its  functions  into  two  kinds,  and 
so  consider  its  relation  to  spontaneity  apart  from  its  relation  to 
velleity.  In  connection  with  the  power  of  deliberation  will  also 
come  up  the  question  regarding  the  function  of  inhibition  or 
arrest  in  mental  phenomena,  as  an  agency  in  the  development 
from  organic  and  reflex  activities  to  the  rational. 

(a)  Definition  of  Deliberation. — Deliberation,  so  far  as  it 
concerns  Ethics,  is  reflection  upon  alternative  courses  of  action 
offered  to  the  will.  In  general  it  is  reflection  about  any  object  of 
consciousness  or  delayed  attention  to  it.  In  matters  of  conduct 
it  is  hesitation  about  a  choice  or  a  volition,  and  involves  a  sus- 
pension of  action  until  the  mind  can  come  to  some  conclusion 
about  the  proper  course  to  be  chosen.  Thus  if  I  am  in  a  room 
alone  where  a  tempting  plate  of  delicious  fruit  is  exposed  to  my 
eyes,  if  hungry  and  if  the  fruit  were  my  own  I  might  at  once 
help  myself  to  it  without  any  hesitation  and  perhaps  without 
thought  of  the  consequences.  But  if  the  fruit  be  not  my  own, 
my  first  inclination  to  take  it  may  be  arrested  by  the  thought 
that  it  is  not  my  own  and  that  I  should  be  doing  a  wrong  to 
take  it.  Then  I  may  think  that  the  owner  mil  not  care,  or  that 
..  I  shall  not  be  discovered,  and  the  temptation  returns.  But 
again  I  am  checked  by  the  fear  that  I  may  be  mistaken  again, 
that  I  have  no  right  to  the  fruit,  etc.  All  the  while  I  am  simply 
deliberating  about  whether  I  shall  or  shall  not  act.  Similarly,  if 
I  am  not  decided  as  to  the  prudent  course  among  several  possible 
ones  offered  me,  I  reflect  upon  them  until  I  am  assured,  and  I 
act  according  to  the  result  of  deliberation.  All  this  shows  a 
certain  amount  of  control  over  the  direction  of  consciousness  and 
the  will,  and  that  there  may  be  a  delay  between  the  inception  of 


196  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

an  idea  and  the  effort  to  put  it  into  effect.  Deliberation  thus 
suspends  the  impulsive  or  hasty  tendencies  of  feeling  until  the 
more  balanced  functions  of  the  mind  give  it  control  over  influ- 
ences that  might  make  it  their  victim.  Such  is  its  nature,  and 
after  examining  the  various  kinds  of  action  represented  by 
development,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  stages  of  organization, 
Ave  may  study  the  function  of  reflection  in  its  relation  to  conduct. 

(h)  Reflex  Actions. — Reflex  action  is  an  unconscious  response 
to  stimulus.  It  is  illustrated  by  such  actions  as  the  beating  of 
the  heart,  the  peristaltic  movements  of  the  stomach  and  intes- 
tines, and  in  a  partial  way,  breathing  and  winking.  There  are 
probably  numerous  other  forms,  though  less  manifest  types  of 
it.  But  the  few  special  cases  mentioned  are  sufiicient  to  make 
clear  that  they  are  not  consciously  caused  by  the  subject  in 
whose  j)erson  they  appear.  The  resource  of  explanation  is  sim- 
ply to  maintain  that  they  are  organic  reactions  to  stimulus  and 
are  no  more  free  moral  acts  than  is  the  fall  of  a  stone:  Now,  as 
it  is  generally  assumed  that  both  in  the  lowest  types  of  organic 
existence  and  in  the  earliest  stages  of  all  animal  life  the  actions  of 
such  beings  are  only  reflex  or  automatic,  the  latter  being  less  defi- 
nite reflexes,  we  may  readily  ask  the  question  how  we  ever  get  be- 
yond such  actions.  We  are  everywhere  told  that  all  our  higher 
ideas  and  actions  are  developed  from  the  earlier  and  lower,  and 
if  these  are  only  sensations  and  reflexes  we  may  well  ask,  con- 
sidering that  reflex  actions  are  neither  conscious  nor  free,  how 
the  conduct  we  call  free  can  possibly  be  so  when  it  is  only  a  mod- 
ified and  complex  form  of  reflex  action.  Throwing  aside  the 
absence  of  consciousness  in  the  case,  the  entire  dependence  of* 
reflex  actions  upon  external  stimulus  makes  them  necessary 
events  under  their  conditions,  and  if  our  volitions  are  only  like 
them,  with  a  similar  kind  of  condition  acting  as  the  antecedent, 
they  are  not  free.  But  if  our  actions  be  free  in  any  respect  and 
yet  must  be  superimposed  upon  a  basis  of  reflex  functions,  how 
can  that  result  be  aflectcd  ? 

{(•)  Impvhive  Aclloni^. — As  already  defined,  impulsive  actions 
are  non-deliberative  volitions,  and  hence  represent  a  tendency  to 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  197 

act  on  the  temptation  of  the  moment.  They  differ  from  reflexes 
in  being  conscious,  but  they  resemble  the  same  in  the  prompt- 
ness of  their  occurrence  when  suggested.  They  thus  have  a  most 
important  connection  with  reflexes,  at  least  in  appearances. 
They  do  not  require  illustration,  after  all  that  has  been  said  of 
them  under  the  head  of  motives.  But  it  is  important  to  note 
that  they  indicate  a  condition  very  unlike  freedom  to  all  who 
feel  that  deliberation  is  essential  to  it ;  and  as  so  much  of  man's 
conduct  seems  impulsive,  it  is  a  question  how  he  ever  obtains  any 
control  of  it,  or  how  he  can  be  expected  to  gain  control  of  it. 

(d)  Rational  Actions. — Rational  actions  are  both  conscious 
and  either  deliberative  or  the  result  of  previous  deliberation, 
while  involving  also  right  adjustment  to  either  a  constant  or 
variable  environment.  How  they  are  possible  in  a  system  based 
upon  reflexes  and  impulses  is  the  question.  They  are  presumed 
to  be  free  actions  2^^^^  excellence.  They  are  certainly  peculiar 
to  the  highest  stages  of  development,  and  are  superimposed  upon 
forms  oT  conduct  which  are  not  free.  How  do  they  originate, 
and  how  is  free  action  possible,  if  evolved  from  elements  contain- 
ing none  of  it  ? 

(e)  Inhibition  and  Its  Functions. — The  answer  to  the  several 
questions  which  we  have  asked  about  the  gradual  evolution  from 
reflex  to  rational  or  deliberative  action  is  found  in  the  part 
played  by  the  very  interesting  phenomenon  known  as  inhibition. 
Before  stating  its  relation  to  deliberation,  which  it  in  reality 
makes  possible,  we  must  show  what  it  is ;  that  is,  define  it. 

Inhibition  is  the  arrest  which  the  function  of  one  nervous  center, 
or  the  existence  of  one  set  of  ideas,  exerts  upon  the  spontaneous  ten- 
dency of  another  to  dominate  in  action.  This  must  be  illustrated 
in  order  to  be  made  more  clear.  A  good  example  of  inhibition 
is  the  delay  or  stoppage  of  the  heart-beat  by  disturbances  in  the 
l^neumogastric  nerve,  or  the  restraint  by  the  brain  of  certain 
muscular  movements  mediated  by  the  spinal  cord  ;  the  arrest  of 
intestinal  movements  by  interferences  with  the  splanchnic  nerve, 
and  in  respiration  by  interferences  with  the  superior  laryngeal 
nerve.     "  Similarly,"  says  Foster,  "  the  vaso-motor  center  in  the 


198  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

medulla  may,  by  impulses  arriving  along  various  afferent  tracts, 
be  inhibited,  during  which  the  muscular  walls  of  various  arteries 
are  relaxed  or  augmented,  whereby  the  tonic  contraction  of 
various  arteries  is  increased."  This  may  be  called  purely  phy- 
siological arrest.  On  the  other  hand,  psychological  inhibition 
will  be  the  arresting  influence  of  Consciousness  in  one  direction 
against  the  exercise  either  of  neural  or  conscious  action  in 
another.  For  instance,  the  concentration  of  attention  upon 
something  in  the  visual  field  will  diminish  the  intensity  of  a  sen- 
sation in  the  tactual  field,  or  the  remembered  experience  of  pain 
will  check  the  tendency  of  a  present  consciousness  to  issue  in 
muscular  action.  Attention  upon  a  special  object  of  interest 
may  inhibit  the  influence  of  impressions  that  otherwise  would 
serve  as  warnings  of  approaching  danger.  The  efl^ect  of  past 
experience  will  operate  to  restrain  impulse,  etc.  All  these  show 
that  the  higher  organisms  are  the  seat  of  functions  that  tend  to 
balance  each  other,  one  arresting  the  unco-ordinatcd  action  of 
another,  so  that  when  necessary  the  central  direction  of  conduct 
may  supplant  that  of  external  stimulus  and  reflex  action. 

Now,  unless  we  take  account  of  this  function  of  arrest  the 
argument  for  the  originally  determined,  and  necessary  character 
of  all  our  actions  is  very  strong.  It  is  generally  assumed  that 
man  begins  his  existence  as  a  purely  reflex  organism  which  re- 
sponds to  various  forms  of  stimulus.  In  this  condition  he  can 
be  neither  free  nor  responsible  in  the  proper  sense  of  those 
terms.  To  be  free  the  agent  must  be  conscious,  must  have 
ideational  motives;  that  is,  possess  a  distinct  idea  of  an  end, 
and  have  the  capacity  for  delil)eration.  In  reflex  actions  none 
of  these  conditions  are  present.  They  are  wholly  unconscious, 
non-reflective,  and  show  a  dependence  upon  some  stimulus  ex- 
ternal to  the  organism  or  nerve  affected.  If,  therefore,  man  is 
purely  a  reflex  organism  his  freedom  is  out  of  the  question. 
He  is  merely  a  passive  being  awaiting  the  impulse  of  external 
stimulus,  and  for  aught  we  should  know  in  the  case  his  actions 
would  be  nothing  but  the  transforjuation  or  transmission  of 
energy  from  without  through  another  medium.     They  would, 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  199 

therefore,  have  to  be  treated  in  terms  of  their  external  causes. 
Remove  the  stimuli  and  the  actions  would  not  occur.  There 
is  no  spontaneity  assumed  in  reflexes,  any  more  than  in  the 
motion  of  a  falling  body,  and  hence  if  all  man's  actions  were 
simjole  reflexes  they  would  be  wholly  determined  from  without. 
There  could  be  no  use  in  treating  him  as  the  cause  of  them,  be- 
cause he  would  not  so  act  of  himself,  and  could  not  help  thus 
acting  if  the  stimulus  occurred.  But  it  is  otherwise  if  we  con- 
sider him  as  the  subject  of  states  of  consciousness  which  are 
assumed  to  indicate  the  initiating  power  of  the  mind  independ- 
ently of  reflex  stimulus.  States  of  consciousness  may  be  awak- 
ened by  external  stimuli,  but  neither  their  contents  nor  their 
power  are  determined  by  that  source.  These  are  determined  by 
the  mind,  and  are  rather  mere  antecedents  and  conditions  than 
causes  of  volition.  They  represent  what  we  call  purpose,  ends, 
motives,  which  are  not  apparent  in  reflexes,  and  if  man  be  free 
they  must  show  the  initiative  of  volition  to  be  something  other 
than  external  stimulus,  and  that  he  is  capable  of  deliberating. 

Now,  man  is  the  subject  both  of  reflex  actions  and  of  states  of 
consciousness,  which  last  are  supposed  to  initiate  free  action. 
But  since  all  students  of  his  history,  both  in  regard  to  his  indi- 
vidual origin  and  development  from  a  remote  simple  organism, 
maintain  that  the  first  functions  he  exhibits  are  merely  reflex, 
the  question  may  be  raised,  as  already  indicated.  How  does  he 
ever  get  beyond  them  ?  This  is  especially  significant  when  we 
remember  the  very  simple  but  striking  fact  that  reflex-reaction 
time,  which  is  the  interval  between  stimulus  and  reaction,  is  shorter 
than  cerebral-reaction  time.  That  is,  reactions  of  the  spinal  cord 
(in  sleep,  for  example)  occupy  less  time  than  reactions  of  the 
higher  brain  centers,  the  latter  being  supposed  to  exercise 'the 
functions  of  intelligence.  Hence  this  being  the  case,  and  if  re- 
flex centers  must  act  at  once  upon  the  occurrence  of  stimulus, 
muscular  action  must  take  place  before  consciousness  can  either 
be  awakened  or  influence  volition.  Consequently  whatever 
consciousness  might  be  able  to  do  after  it  arose,  if  left  to  reflex 
functions  the   deed  would  be  done  before   consciousness  arose. 


200  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  any  volition  to  the  contrary  would  be  nugatory  and  useless. 
The  same  motor  organism  has  to  ba  employed  by  both  forms  of 
action,  and  if  all  acts  were  to  follow  external  stimuli  imme- 
diately, consciousness  could  not  be  their  initiative.  Hence  it 
must  have  time  to  rise  and  to  exercise  its  efficiency  before  and 
indei^endently  of  the  tendencies  to  reflex  action. 

It  is  precisely  here  that  inhibition  or  arrest,  as  a  function  of 
comjilex  organisms,  can  be  invoked  to  check  the  reflexes  and  to 
allow  conscious  states  to  mediate  between  stimulus  and  muscular 
action.     For  instance,  it  has  been  shown  by  actual  experiment 
upon  animals  that  the  very  presence  of  the  cerebral  mass  of 
nervous  matter  acts  upon  the  reflexes  of  the  spinal  cord  to  re- 
tard  them ;  that   is,  to  lengthen  reaction  time.     The  normal 
condition,  therefore,  of  a  nervous  organism,  including  a  brain 
and  a  spinal  cord,  is  one  of  physiological  inhibition  exerted  by 
the  higher  centers  upon  the  lower.     Again,  it  is  known  that  in 
sleep  reaction  time  is  quickened,  and  in  the  conscious  state  it  is 
retarded,  or  intellectual  activity  diminishes  assimilation  of  food 
whenever  we  endeavor  to  carry  on  prolonged  reflection  while 
the  forces  of  the  system  are  required  for  digestion.     This  is  a 
case   of  psychological    inhibition.     It   represents  the  arresting 
power  of  .consciousness  upon  lower  or  other  centers  by  virtue  of 
its  absorption  of  enei'gy  which  would  otherwise  be  expended  in 
the  reflex  centers.     But  in  whatever  manner  it  may  be  said  to 
act  reaction  time  is  retarded,  the  energy  and  promptness  of  re- 
flex action  are  diminished,  and  other  forces  are  called  into  ex- 
istence than   the  mechanico-i)hysical  agencies  of  stinudus  and 
reaction.     This  cflect  vikjld  not  be  sufficient  to  overcome  or  to 
compensate  for   the   diflercncc   between   reaction  and  cerebral 
events;    but  on   the  other  hand   it  often   is  sufficient,  and  in 
highly  organized  beings  is  always  so  for  any  muscular  actions 
connected  with  delil^erativc  consciousness.     The  question,  how- 
ever, is  not  how  consciousness  can  ever  usurp  the  functions  of 
the  organic  system,  l)ut  how  it  can  ever  find  a  chance  to  exer- 
cise  n)otive   efficiency,   or   tenable   the    mind    to  do  so,   before 
some  form  of  muscular  response  has  made  its  action  useless. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  201 

Hence  the  first  thing  to  be  accomplished  by  the  facts  mentioned 
is  to  show  the  very  wide  influence  exerted  by  every  form  of 
arrest  Avhich  tends  to  equilibrate  and  co-ordinate  the  reactions 
of  the  organism,  so  that  the  subject  may  become  more  than  a 
merely  reacting  agent. 

The  same  principle  operates  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
inhibitions  of  the  higher  intellectual  centers  upon  the  tendencies 
of  sensation  and  emotion  to  issue  in  action  immediately  upon  the 
occurrence  of  stimulus.  This  is  the  case  with  the  impulses  or 
impulsive  actions.  In  a  being  disposed  to  follow  the  temptations 
of  the  moment,  or  to  act  under  sudden  passion,  the  trouble  is  that 
his  emotions  act  much  like  reflexes,  and  he  is  the  victim  of 
every  external  circumstance  that  exposes  him  to  their  occur- 
rence. Unless  inhibition  from  some  source  can  check  such  a 
tendency,  a  man  seems  to  be  cut  oflT  from  the  possibility  of  alter- 
native choice  for  the  lack  of  deliberative  resources.  He  may  be 
conscious,  but  not  conscious  of  all  the  consequences  involved  in 
the  action,  prompted  by  a  more  or  less  reflex  tonicity  of  his  mus- 
cular system  at  the  time.  Hence  this  explosive  tendency  needs 
to  be  curbed,  if  he  should  seem  to  possess  anything  like  freedom. 
Now  we  are  told  by  modern  psychologists  that  it  is  of  the  very 
nature  of  sensational  and  emotional  states  to  influence  the  mus- 
cular system.  Instance  suggestion,  sudden  pains,  intense  anger  or 
fear,  etc.  This  is  the  so-called  law  of  psycho-genesis,  or  the 
tendency  of  emotional  consciousness  to  issue  in  volition,  by  suppo- 
sition, without  reflection.  But  it  is  also  a  fact  that  such  qpn- 
ditions  do  not  always  prevail.  The  natural  tendencies  of  sensation 
and  emotion  are  often,  if  not  always,  brought  under  control. 
Some  influence  succeeds  in  arresting  their  spontaneities.  It  is,  of 
course,  the  ideational  and  reflective  consciousness  which  inhibits 
them  and  introduces  the  rational  type  of  mental  action.  For 
instance,  pain  has  an  inhibitory  influence  on  muscular  action,  and 
so  also  the  idea  of  a  prospective  pain  will  serve  as  a  restraint,  not 
perhaps  functionally,  but  through  the  will.  The  child  putting  its 
hand  unwittingly  into  the  fire  is  an  instance  of  the  eflfect  of  present 
pain.     The  consequent  action  is  often  called  reflex  ;  but  I  do  not 


202  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

think  it  is  wholly  such.  Consciousness  is  too  much  a  part  of  it 
to  be  purely  reflex  in  all  cases,  if  it  is  ever  so.  Then  if  the  child 
be  tempted  a  second  time  to  try  the  same  experiment  out  of  curi- 
osity, the  memory  of  the  past  experience,  or  the  idea  of  the  past 
pain,  with  the  consciousness  of  its  imminent  reoccurrence,  -will 
arrest  all  tendencies  to  movement  caused  by  the  curiosity 
of  the  previous  moment.  One  state  of  consciousness  sup- 
presses the  motor  tendency  of  the  other  in  the  case,  and  the 
subject  becomes  a  deliberative  being.  In  this  and  all  similar 
cases  the  natural  difference  between  the  occurrence  of  the  stimu- 
lus and  the  reaction,  if  it  were  reflex,  is  overcome,  and  a  balance 
established  between  the  various  functions  of  the  system,  so  that 
the  higher  states  of  consciousness  may  take  possession  of  the  field 
and  interrupt  the  natural  influence  of  external  forces  and  the 
temptation  to  adjustment  without  regard  to  remoter  conse- 
quences. 

The  function  of  inhibition  in  this  is  perfectly  clear.  It  is  an 
organic  influence  to  break  up  the  pure  mechanism  of  the  system 
and  to  enable  the  higher  mental  states  to  supplant  the  reflex 
and  impulsive  tendencies  of  the  subject.  When  it  thus  over- 
comes both  forms  of  influence  opposed  to  free  action,  the  mechan- 
ical tendencies  of  reflex  action,  and  the  spontaneity  of  impulse, 
it  hands  the  field  over  to  deliberative  and  rational  agencies.  It 
does  not  constitute  freedom,  and  may  not  be  any  element  of  it  in 
a  perfectly  developed  being.  But  in  all  such  as  are  exposed  to 
the  limitations  of  organic  reflexes,  the  temptations  of  present  im- 
pulse, and  the  fixities  of  hereditary  desire,  it  is  a  powerful  agent 
for  enabling  reason  to  obtain  command.  It  is  the  function 
which  makes  deliberation  possible,  and  shows  both  the  complex- 
ity of  the  conditions  of  freedom  and  the  graduated  character  of 
that  attribute.  We  should  remember  also  that  it  will  operate  to 
make  choice  delilicrative  as  well  as  to  modify  muscular  action 
and  volition.  It  remains,  then,  only  to  see  how  deliberation 
serves  as  evidence  of  the  fact. 

(/)  Deliberation  as  a  Proof  of  Spontnnr.Uy. — Inhibition  shows 
that  our  actions  are  not  simple  reflexes,  and  that  they  contain 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  203 

elements  which  cannot  be  developed  out  of  reflexes  of  the  uncon- 
scious kind.  But  it  does  not  stand  in  the  way  of  an  immediate 
connection  between  external  stimulus  and  volition  through  the 
idea  which  may  supplant  sensation  and  emotion  of  the  impulsive 
sort.  To  establish  the  first  condition  of  freedom,  then,  we  must 
wholly  eliminate  the  determining  influence  of  stimulus,  that  is, 
environment.     This  can  be  done  in  the  following  manner : 

If  a  man's  action  be  in  any  way  determined  by  environment, 
that  is  to  say,  if  volition  be  the  necessary  consequence  of  his  en- 
vironment, caused  by  it,  the  act  must  follow  immediately  the 
influence  of  stimulus.  The  causal  nexus  between  stimulus 
and  volition  must  not  be  interrupted  or  modified  by  any  other 
cause.  The  law  of  mechanical  causation  requires  this  immediate 
connection  between  antecedent  and  consequent.  There  may  be 
an  interval  between  the  first  and  the  last  number  of  a  series 
of  events  so  connected,  but  each  eSect  is  the  immediate  and 
necessary  consequence  of  its  antecedent  cause,  and  the  ultimate 
result  follows  without  any  deliberation  regarding  it  or  regarding 
any  number  of  the  series.  Now,  the  connection  between  stimulus 
and  volition  must  be  either  an  immediate  one,  without  interven- 
ing steps,  or  a  series  of  steps  directly  connected,  if  volition  is  to 
be  necessitated  by  external  influences.  Take  the  first  of  these 
alternatives.  If  I  am  suddenly  pricked  with  a  sharp  instrument 
my  movements  will  be  directed  to  getting  rid  of  the  sensation  or 
pain  produced  by  the  stimulus.  If  the  volition  be  the  mechan- 
ical effect  of  the  stimulus,  the  movement  must  follow  it  at  once, 
as  a  sound  follows  immediately  upon  the  impact  of  two  bodies ; 
and  nothing  could  hinder  it  from  doing  so  but  a  cause  from  some 
other  source.  There  would  be  no  deliberation  possible  where  the 
connection  was  immediate.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  the  subject 
does  sometimes  deliberate  in  such  emergencies.  The  sensation 
and  the  stimulus  do  not  always  issue  at  once  in  a  volition 
designed  to  remove  them.  The  agent  may  permit  the  stimulus 
to  continue  without  a  volition  for  self-defense  at  all,  so  that 
the  natural  and  presumptive  efli^ct  does  not  occur  at  all.  "What 
this  deliberation  shows,  then,  is  that  the  supposed  mechanical 


204  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

nexus  oetween  stimulus  and  volition  is  interrupted  and  that  we 
must  look  to  something  else  thau  the  antecedent  stimulus  for  the 
true  cause  of  the  volition.  Where  the  nexus  was  uninterrupted 
there  would  be  no  direct  objective  evidence  that  any  other  cause 
existed,  though  it  might  be  present.  But  when  an  interval  of 
time  exists,  involving  deliberation,  between  stimulus  and  volition, 
supposing  them  the  only  two  members  of  the  series  in  which  we 
are  interested,  it  is  decided  proof  that  the  stimulus  is  not  the 
only  or  true  cause  of  the  result. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  there  are  more  members  than  two 
in  the  series,  and  as  a  fact  there  are  several,  which  may  be 
summed  up  in  stimulus,  sensation,  perception,  desire,  volition, 
it  might  be  said  that  an  interval  could  be  involved  here  while 
the  whole  series  represented  a  mechanical  one  in  which  each 
member  was  the  necessary  effect  of  its  antecedent  and  the 
necessary  cause  of  its  consequent.  But  if  this  view  of  it 
be  taken  there  could  be  no  deliberation  between  any  two  links 
in  the  chain,  wliile  each  event  would  be  supposed  immediately  to 
produce  the  following.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  we  do  deliberate 
between  cither  the  stimulus  and  the  volition  or  between 
desire  and  volition,  and  in  either  case  the  mechanical  nexus 
of  external  influences  with  the  final  effect  is  cut  off  and  we  have 
to  look  to  the  subject  of  volition  for  the  true  cause  of  it.  As 
long  as  deliberation  is  a  fact,  therefore,  objective  determinism 
must  be  denied.  In  other  words,  the  objective  determinist  is  in 
a  dilemma.  If  he  reduces  all  causation  to  the  purely  mechanical 
form  he  must  deny  the  fact  of  deliberation,  because  the  law  of 
cause  and  effect  requires  an  immediate  nexus  between  tlie  two 
terms.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  admit  tlic  fact  of  deliberation, 
he  nuist  surrender  his  theory,  because  he  assumes  that  the  nexus 
between  the  presumed  cause  and  its  effect  is  not  an  immediate 
one,  so  that  some  other  agent  must  be  invoked  to  account  for 
the  result.  Consequently,  as  no  one  has  the  foolhardiness  to 
deny  the  fact  of  deliberation,  the  theory  of  objective  determinism 
or  mechanical  necessitarianism  is  tlirown  out  of  court,  and  at 
least  the  freedom  of  spontaneity  pnn'cd  bcycmd  a  doubt.     TLis 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  205 

wholly  removes  the  time-honored  argument  from  environment 
against  freedom  in  the  second  and  third  senses  of  the  term,  and 
shows  that  we  must  go  to  the  subject  for  the  cause  of  volition, 
and  if  the  theory  of  mechanical  necessity  is  thus  proved  to  be  in- 
sufficient to  account  for  the  effect,  at  least  spontaneity  of  some 
kind  must  be  assumed,  and  this  fact  removes  all  a  priori  objec- 
tions to  freedom  of  a  more  impoi'tant  kind  by  implying,  first, 
that  mechanical  causation  is  not  universal,  and  second,  that 
there  may  be  possibly  two  exceptions  to  it  as  well  as  one. 

But  as  there  is  practically  no  dispute  about  the  fact  that  a 
man  is  the  cause  of  his  own  volitions,  and  that  they  are  not 
strictly  determined  objectively,  it  is  not  enough  to  disprove  me- 
chanical necessitarianism.  Yet  there  is  one  important  point 
gained  by  it,  and  it  is  that  we  have  found  the  evidential  signifi- 
cance of  deliberation  Avhile  establishing  at  least  the  freedom  of 
spontaneity.  The  possibility  of  velleity  from  the  same  fact  has 
still  to  be  considered. 

(g)  Deliberation  as  Evidence  of  Velleity. — Though  delibera- 
tion may  disprove  a  causal  nexus  between  external  stimulus  and 
volition,  it  will  be  said  that  it  does  not  interfere  with  the  final 
prevalence  of  the  strongest  motive  or  of  character,  and  hence 
does  not  stand  in  the  way  of  denying  the  possibility  of  alterna- 
tive choice.  That  is  to  say,  the  necessitarian  will  admit  both 
the  fact  of  deliberation  and  the  falsity  of  objective  determinism, 
and  yet  deny  the  capacity  for  alternative  choice,  holding  that 
deliberation  does  not  interfere  with  this  limitation,  that  the 
strongest  motive  must  finally  prevail  in  spite  of  deliberation, 
which  only  delays  the  issue. 

The  force  of  this  position  lies  in  the  fact  that  motives,  prop- 
erly conceived,  are  purely  subjective  events,  and  yet  are  used  in 
the  argument  as  if  they  were  objective  and  did  not  involve  the 
subject  at  the  same  time.  In  other  words,  the  argument  is  sup- 
posed to  carry  with  it  no  other  implication  than  is  involved  in 
the  conception  of  mechanical  "  motives,"  and  being  stated  in 
the  same  form  creates  an  illusion  of  the  identity  between 
subjective   and   objective   determinism,  for  the   explanation  of 


206  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

wliicli  we  have  only  to  refer  to  what  has  already  been  said 
about  the  import  and  causal  efficiency  of  motives.  For  under- 
standing the  relation  of  deliberation  to  their  causative  power 
we  can  examine  the  following,  where  argument  from  reflection 
shows  much  the  same  evidential  character  for  velleity  as  it  has 
shown  for  spontaneity. 

The  force  of  the  denial  that  deliberation  alters  the  case  de- 
pends wholly  upon  the  supposition  that  motives  determine  voli- 
tion and  that  the  strongest  must  prevail  after  the  manner  of 
mechanical  causes.  It  is  assumed  that  deliberation  only  delays 
the  final  issue,  and  that  when  it  is  past  the  existence  of  equal 
alternatives  is  past  and  the  person  has  no  real  ciioice  ])ut  to  fol- 
low his  character  or  the  strongest  motive.  There  are  two,  per- 
haps several,  replies  to  be  made  to  this.  The  first  consists  of  the 
argument  already  advanced  in  regard  to  both  tlie  causality  of 
motives  and  the  relation  of  "  character  "  to  volition.  It  does 
not  require  to  be  repeated,  as  the  student  may  refer  to  it  for  the 
purpose.  The  second  is  an  application  of  the  fact  of  delibera- 
tion and  will  repeat  the  argument  for  spontaneity  with  the  sub- 
stitution of  motives  for  stimulus. 

Motives  are  either  the  cause  of  volition  or  they  are  not.  In 
the  latter  alternative  their  presence  is  not  opposed  to  freedom, 
as  the  very  nature  of  the  case  would  imply.  For  if  they  did  not 
cause  it,  and  yet  the  volition  takes  place  and  ol)jective  deter- 
minism is  excluded,  there  is  nothing  but  the  subject  to  account 
for  the  effect,  this  not  being  determined  by  motives,  according  to 
tlie  supposition.  Ou  the  other  hand,  if  we  conceive  motives  to 
be  tlic  cause  of  volition,  this  efFcct  must  occur  immediately  upon 
their  occurrence  in  consciousness;  for  there  is  no  third  step, 
except  deliberation,  between  them  and  the  volition,  and  they 
cannot  be  the  cause  of  it  as  long  as  deliberation  intervenes. 
I)elil)oration  interrupts  the  sui)po8e(]  causal  nexus  lu'tween  the 
two  terms.  l>ut  if  the  motive  be  the  cause,  this  deliberation  is 
impossible.  AVe  might  assert  cither  or  both  of  two  assumptions: 
first,  that  deliberation  is  an  eqiiilihriiim  from  the  conflict  of  equal 
and  opposing  motives,  or  second,  that  there  are  distinct  kinds 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  207 

of  motives,  which  are  differently  related  to  tlie  law  of  causation. 
But  this  would  not  help  us  any  in  the  case.  If  motives  are  dif- 
ferent in  kind  and  differently  related  to  the  law  of  causation,  the 
whole  case  of  determinism,  subjective  and  objective,  is  lost  for 
the  lack  of  a  single  principle  to  explain  the  result.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  deliberation  is  only  an  equilibrium  between  equal 
and  opposing  motives,  then  either  no  volition  can  take  place  at 
all,  or  when  it  does  take  place  the  strongest  motive  pi'evails  and 
causes  it,  assuming,  of  course,  that  motives  can  cause  it  at  all. 
But  if  the  conflict  be  between  unequal  motives  and  the  strongest 
must  jH-evail,  it  must  do  so  immediately  and  deliberation  cannot 
occur.  But  it  is  a  fact  that  deliberation  occurs  and  that  voli- 
tions take  place,  which  they  could  not  do  if  it  denoted  an  equi- 
librium, and  hence  deliberation  is  either  not  an  equilibrium 
between  equal  motives,  or  it  occurs  in  connection  with  the 
so-called  stronger  motives.  If  it  occurs  with  the  latter  it  either 
produces  an  equilibrium  and  volition  occurs  without  being  caused 
by  either  motive,  or  it  interrupts  all  supposed  causal  agency  in 
the  strongest  motive,  and  in  both  alternatives  something  else 
than  the  motive  has  to  be  the  cause  of  the  volition,  and  the  case 
of  every  form  of  necessitarianism  is  lost.  Hence  the  necessitarian 
may  choose  between  affirming  the  mechanical  law  of  causation 
of  motives  as  well  as  of  stimuli  and  the  fact  of  deliberation.  He 
cannot  hold  to  both  at  the  same  time.  The  strongest  motive 
either  does  not  exist  or  does  not  prevail ;  that  is,  has  no  causal 
efficiency,  if  deliberation  takes  place  and  interrupts  its  immediate 
issue  in  volition.  It  will  not  help  matters  to  say  that  after  the 
deliberation  has  occurred  the  strongest  motive  must  then  prevail, 
because  whatever  strength  it  may  then  he  supposed  to  have  has  been 
derived  from  the  deliberate  choice  and  decision  of  the  agent  outside 
the  series  of  events  assumed  to  determine  the  volition.  "We  do  not 
care  what  takes  place  after  reflection.  The  whole  question  of 
freedom  is  proved  by  the  fact  of  deliberation  while  it  exists,  and 
nothing  is  gained  by  talking  about  the  strongest  motive  after- 
ward, because  deliberation  is  said  to  be  hesitation  between 
motives  already  existing,  and  if  they  do  not  effect  the  proper 


208  •  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

result  at  ouce,  whether  equal  or  unequal,  it  is  for  the  reason  that 
they  have  no  causal  efficiency  at  all  in  their  constitution,  and 
this  agency  must  come  from  the  reflecting  subject,  independently 
of  the  series  of  j^henoniena  with  which  it  is  concerned.  It  pro- 
duces the  motives,  weighs  them,  and  if  one  be  stronger  than 
another,  determines  that  strength  by  a  spontaneous  act  of  its 
own.  In  fact,  motives  have  no  strength  whatever  except  what 
the  mind  gives  them,  so  that  deliberation  is  only  a  proof  that 
there  is  no  causal  nexus  between  the  mental  events  which  make 
up  life  and  that  it  must  be  sought  outside  the  series,  and  once 
outside  the  series  freedom  is  guaranteed,  no  matter  what  is  said 
about  the  result  of  "  character,"  as  has  been  already  shown. 

But  the  argument  of  the  necessitarian  has  both  its  strength 
and  its  weakness  in  the  equivocal  import  of  the  term  "  motive.  " 
In  so  far  as  "  motive  "  denotes  an  end,  or  an  idea  of  several  ends 
there  seem  to  be  several  alternatives  offered  the  will,  and  this 
notion  will  give  rise  to  the  conception  of  a  conflict,  where  pre- 
sumably the  stronger  will  prevail.  But  in  so  far  as  "  motives  " 
are  only  ideas  of  ends,  they  have  neither  strength  nor  causal 
efficiency.  No  one  for  a  moment  attributes  initiative  power  to 
simple  ideas  or  cognitions.  They  never  move  the  will,  and  not 
having  "  motive  "  power,  causally  conceived,  cannot  exhibit  any 
moral,  but  only  a  logical,  conflict.  Such  thing  as  a  struggle  be- 
tween them  and  the  prevalence  of  the  stronger  is  not  possible. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  term  "  motive  "  denotes  the  emotional 
side  of  the  a,ssumed  condition  of  volition,  there  is  more  reason 
for  supposing  it  to  have  causal  efficiency.  But  in  this  case  there 
may  be  only  one  motive,  and  if  so  a  struggle  is  also  impossible,  so 
that  a  competition  between  "  motives, "  which  the  necessitarian 
admits  to  occur,  is  absurd.  In  fact,  therefore,  his  whole  case  rests 
upon  his  making  out  that  there  is  only  one  "  motive  "  m  volition, 
and  that  on  the  causal  side  there  is  no  alternative  impulse  to  the 
one  antecedent  to  the  act.  Strange  to  say,  however,  the  necessi- 
tarian has  never  asserted  this  view  of  the  case.  But  it  is  not 
oidy  the  sole  conception  of  tlie  i)r()l)k>m  wliidi  will  l)car  criticism, 
but  it  is,  in  tlie  present  writer's  view,  the  truer  conception  of  the 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  200 

facts.  "  Motive,"  so  far  as  it  means  impelling  power,  denotes  a 
desire,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  claim  that  man  can  ultimately 
have  but  one  desire,  and  this  is  the  ultimate  object  of  his  pursuit, 
pleasure,  perfection,  wealth,  power,  etc.  Assuming  this  for  the 
moment,  what  we  mean  by  desires,  then,  is  merely  many  objects 
of  a  single  kind  of  mental  state.  Desire  does  express  both  an  ob- 
ject of  consciousness  and  an  attraction  toward  it.  Now,  there 
may  be  many  objects  of  desire,  but  only  one  feeling  or  impulse 
regarding  them,  and  there  can  be  only  one  ultimate  object  of  it. 
Deliberation  is,  therefore,  about  the  means  to  this  one  end. 
What  is  called  a  conflict  of  "  motives  "  is  only  hesitation  about 
the  choice  of  means,  the  choice  of  the  end  already  having  been 
made,  and  in  fact  predetermined  by  the  nature  of  the  subject. 
The  deliberation,  then,  is  not  between  "motives,"  considered  as 
desire,  which  is  only  one  in  kind,  but  about  ideas  and  means. 
This  is  precisely  the  doctrine  of  Aristotle,  and  it  is  not  a  little 
surprising  to  see  his  analysis  neglected  on  all  sides.  But  it  means, 
if  accepted,  that  a  new  conception  of  the  whole  problem  is  re- 
quired, and  it  is  a  conception  which  corresponds,  on  the  surface 
at  least,  to  the  necessitarian  doctrine. 

Analyzing  "motives"  into  ideas  of  end  and  emotional  im- 
pulse, and  assuming  that  they  have  causal  efficiency,  we  find 
that  this  quality  must  belong  to  the  emotional  element,  because 
ideas  }ier  se  are  inert.  But  this  emotional  element  or  desire, 
minus  its  cognitive  aspect,  can  be  only  of  one  kind  considered  as  a 
psychological  cause,  and  with  that  cognitive  aspect  can  ultimately 
have  but  one  object.  There  is,  then,  no  comparison  of  impulses 
possible,  but  only  of  the  means  for  gratifying  the  one  funda- 
mental desire  of  our  being.  In  this  case  there  is  only  one 
"  motive  "  to  act,  and  it  must  prevail,  no  matter  what  the  choice 
of  means.  That  is  to  say,  a  man  cannot  evade  his  ultimate 
choice  and  volition.  This  way  of  describing  his  condition  is 
identical  with  the  terms  of  necessitarianism. 

If  this  view  of  the  case  were  not  the  true  one,  and  we  could 
speak  strictly  of  a  conflict  of  desires,  tlie  argument  already  pre- 
sented would  have  to  be  repeated.     But  accepting  the  conception 


210  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS     . 

as  the  true  one,  it  would  seem  that  deliberation  does  not  affect 
desire  or  the  true  motive,  and  that  it  can  be  only  about  ideas  of 
ends  which  have  no  "motive"  efficiency,  Nevertheless  freedom- 
ism  has  two  resources  of  escape  which  it  will  be  interesting  to 
examine. 

First,  the  theory  of  freedom  does  not  require  that  a  man  be 
able  to  choose  for  himself  the  ultimate  end  which  his  nature  pre- 
scribes, but  only  that  he  be  able  to  choose  whether  he  shall  real- 
ize it  or  not,  and  to  choose  between  the  objects  presented  as  pos- 
sible means  to  that  end.  That  he  does  deliberate  regarding  those 
and  tliat  he  does  choose  between  them  is  a  fact  which  can  hardly 
be  denied.  Certainly  they  have  no  immediate  effect  uj)on  volition 
when  presented,  as  the  law  of  causation  would  require,  and  since 
there  is  complete  indifference  toward  them  during  deliberation 
the  subject  must  first  determine  their  value  and  relation  to  the  ul- 
timate end  of  desire  before  they  can  be  supposed  to  have  any  power 
at  all ;  and  this  supposed  power  is  derived  wholly  from  the  desire 
%vithin  whose  scope  they  happen  to  fall.  But  it  requires  a  choice 
of  mind  to  decide  this  fact,  which  is  an  act  of  will  prior  to  the  one 
supposed  to  follow  the  desire  whose  realization  is  suspended  for  the 
time.  Not  to  urge  this  view  too  persistently,  however,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  observe  that  the  capacity  to  choose  among  possible 
means  to  an  end  not  chosen  by  the  will  is  all  that  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  freedom,  because  this  is  all  that  it  may  mean,  and 
probably  every  one  admits  that  such  a  choice  is  possible,  while 
puzzled  ^^^th  the  fact  that  a  man  finds  the  ultimate  end  of  his 
life  fixed  for  him  by  his  nature  and  that  it  must  represent  a  sin. 
gle  desire. 

The  second  argument  is  quite  as  effective.  It  is  that  a  desire 
is  not  a  "  motive  "  when  it  expresses  the  passive  or  probable  ten- 
dency of  the  subject's  nature,  but  only  when  it  is  actively  present 
in  consciousness.  That  is  to  say,  that  man  desires  food  means 
either  that  his  nature  is  such  as  to  need  it  at  the  pro2)er  time,  or 
that  there  is  a  specific  craving  for  it  present  in  consciousness;  for 
instance,  a  condition  of  positive  hunger.  In  the  former  sense  it 
can  be  neither  a  motive  nor  a  cause  of  volition.     That  all  will 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  211 

admit.      Hence,  only  in  the  latter  sense  can  desire  ever  be  a 

"  motive,"  or  be  supposed  to  cause  a  volition.  Now,  assuming 
that  the  ideational  aspect  of  the  motive  or  desire  can  have  no 
efficiency  for  the  purpose,  we  are  left  to  the  emotional  aspect  for 
this  desideration,  and  the  only  question  that  remains  is  whether 
it  has  such  efficiency  or  not,  and  whether  inhibition  and  delib- 
erative influence  it  or  not.  Here  we  return  to  the  same  argu- 
ment as  before.  If  desire  have,  j;er  se,  motive  efficiency  it  must 
produce  volition  immediately.  The  nexus  must  be  direct  be- 
tween it  and  its  effect  while  it  is  active.  But  this  is  not  always 
the  case,  and  may  very  seldom  be  the  case.  An  active  desire  is 
often  suspended  for  various  reasons.  But  it  matters  not  what 
the  reasons  are,  it  does  not  have  immediate  causal  efficiency  when 
present,  but  is  wholly  subject  to  the  conclusion  of  deliberation.  This 
is  only  to  say  that  deliberation  applies  as  much  to  desire  as  it 
does  to  ideas,  and  along  with  its  arrest  of  the  assumed  efficiency 
of  desire  when  present,  only  proves  that  under  any  conception  of 
it,  we  cannot  supj)ose  that  desire  is  the  real  cause  of  the  volition 
or  the  choice.  The  necessitarian  relies  upon  the  involuntary  and 
necessary  occurrence  of  the  desire  as  a  mere  expression  of  the 
subject's  nature  prior  to  any  possible  freedom,  and  then  its  causal 
efficiency  when  it  arises.  But  arrest  and  deliberation  destroy 
all  such  supposed  agency  or  indicate  that  it  is  not  present,  and 
simply  prove  that  mental  phenomena,  whether  they  are  ideas  or 
desires,  are  not  the  real  or  true  causes  of  volition.  Certainly,  if 
the  desire  is  not,  which  is  the  only  event  suspected  of  being  the 
cause,  we  are  left  to  consider  the  subject  as  actually  engaged  in 
deliberate  choice  between  alternatives,  either  between  various 
means  to  an  end  or  between  the  realization  and  non-realization 
of  a  given  end.  In  both  cases  we  have  velleity  or  the  capacity 
of  alternative  choice.  The  case  is  much  stronger  if  we  suppose 
that  more  than  one  desire  be  possible  at  the  same  time,  because 
the  fact  would  show  either  that  a  desire  per  se  has  no  causal 
efficiency  or  that  the  prevalence  of  the  stronger  would  contra- 
dict the  fact  of  deliberation,  or  that  no  volition  would  occur  at 
all,  as  the  argument  before  has  gone  to  show.     But  the  fact  of 


212  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

both  volition  and  deliberation  leaves  us  with  the  same  conclusion 
as  in  the  first  case,  that  mere  mental  events  are  never  the  cause 
of  choice  and  volition. 

The  importance  of  the  fact  of  deliberation,  therefore,  comes 
from  its  furnishing  evidence  to  much  the  same  relation  between 
desire  or  motives  and  volition  as  that  which  objective  determinism 
would  suppose  exists  between  stimulus  and  volition.  The  reason 
that  man  is  not  the  victim  of  objective  influences  is  that  he  is  the 
spectator  of  them.  They  can  determine  nothing  except  through 
the  consciousness  of  the  subject  which  has  originating  power,  as 
is  universally  admitted,  the  only  thing  denied  being  the  suppo- 
sition of  alternative  choice.  But  man  is  also  a  spectator  of  his 
own  states.  This  involves  self-consciousness,  or  self-reflection, 
and  in  a  measure  makes  the  events  of  the  mind  objective  to 
him,  not  external  to  the  subject,  as  environment  must  be,  but 
under  the  same  control  and  limitations  that  we  find  in  external 
influences.  This,  of  course,  is  testimony  to  the  fact  and  impor- 
tance of  both  inhibition  and  deliberation,  and  from  them  we 
have  the  conclusion  already  enunciated.  We  may  turn  next  to 
the  third  argument. 

3.  Consciousness. — The  consciousness  of  freedom  has  quite 
universally  been  the  argument  which  seems  to  carry  the  most 
weight  with  the  laymen's  mind,  and  philosophers  of  the  free- 
domist  school  have  given  it  perhaps  the  most  important  place 
among  the  various  proofs  advanced  for  freedom.  So  strong  has 
it  seemed,  or  so  convincing  at  least  to  those  who  were  l)iasscd  in 
favor  of  freedom,  that  the  necessitarian  has  felt  obliged  to 
Aveaken  or  refute  it  in  some  way.  It  seems  the  clearest  of  all 
appeals  that  can  be  made,  and  where  there  is  no  misunderstand- 
ing about  the  terms  of  the  case,  it  is  probably  a  universal  ieeling, 
or  nearly  so  universal  as  to  make  all  other  cases  abnormal  ex- 
ceptions to  be  accounted  for  as  such.  But  in  order  to  avoid 
any  possible  confusion  which  might  be  incident  to  different 
conceptions  of  freedom  as  we  have  defined  it,  we  must  explain 
that  by  the  consciousness  of  freedom  we  do  not  mean  eitlior  tliat 
the  agent  is  cither  always  or  ever  conscious  of  it  in  all  its  senses, 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  213 

or  that  he  is  conscious  that  he  is  free  every  time  he  makes  a 
choice.  But  we  mean  merely  that  if  he  interrogates  himself  at 
the  moment  of  choice,  or  is  asked  to  state  what  his  power  is  at 
that  time,  he  would  uniformly  express  consciousness  of  ability  to 
have  chosen  the  rejected  alternative.  This  fact  implies  freedom. 
Consciousness  of  freedom,  then,  does  not  mean  that  Ave  are 
always  thinking  of  that  freedom,  but  that,  when  asked  about 
our  ability  to  choose,  we  assert  our  consciousness  of  a  condition 
that  implies  freedom ;  and  that  condition  is  the  ability  to  choose 
otherwise  than  we  have  done,  or  to  choose  equally  between 
alternatives.  This  fact,  if  it  be  true  and  unimpeachable,  is 
everywhere  admitted  to  prove  a  man's  freedom. 

Mr.  Sidgwick,  after  admitting  "  the  formidable  array  of 
cumulative  evidence  offered  for  determinism,"  asserts  that  "  there 
is  but  one  opposing  argument  of  real  force,  namely,  the  imme- 
diate affirmation  of  consciousness  in  the  moment  of  deliberate 
action."  But  after  this  statement  IMr.  Sidgwick  admits  ttiat  this 
consciousness  "  may  be  illusory."  This  is  the  objection  always 
raised  by  the  necessitarian.  Mr.  Balfour,  again,  admits  the 
universality  and  even  the  necessity  of  this  belief  in  the  ability 
to  elect  between  alternatives,  but  then  asserts  that  it  is  an  illu- 
sion. Here  is  his  language :  "  In  fact,  no  doubt  remains  that 
every  individual  while  balancing  between  two  courses  is  under 
the  inevitable  impression  that  he  is  at  liberty  to  pursue  either, 
and  that  it  depends  upon  '  himself  and  himself  alone — '  himself 
as  distinguislied  from  his  character,  his  desires,  his  surroundings, 
and  his  antecedents — which  of  the  offered  alternatives  he  will 
elect  to  pursue.  I  do  not  know  that  any  explanation  has  been 
proposed  of  this  singular  illusion."  Mr.  Balfour  then  goes  on 
to  explain  it  in  the  following  way  :  "  I  venture  with  some  dif- 
fidence to  suggest  as  a  theory  provisionally  adequate  perhaps  for 
scientific  purposes,  that  the  phenomenon  is  due  to  the  same  cause 
as  so  many  other  beneficent  oddities  in  the  organic  world, 
namely,  to  natural  selection.  To  an  animal  with  no  self-con- 
sciousness a  sense  of  freedom  would  evidently  be  unnecessary,  if 
not,  indeed,  absolutely  unmeaning.     But  as  soon  as  self-con- 


214  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

sciousness  is  developed,  as  soon  as  man  begins  to  reflect,  however 
crudely  and  imperfectly,  upon  himself  and  the  world  in  which 
he  lives,  deliberation,  volition,  and  the  sense  of  responsibility 
become  wheels  in  the  ordinary  machinery  by  which  species- 
preserving  actions  are  produced ;  and  as  these  psychological 
states  would  be  weakened  or  neutralized,  if  they  were  accom- 
panied by  the  immediate  consciousness  that  they  were  as  rigidly 
determined  by  their  antecedents  as  any  other  eflfects  by  any 
other  causes,  benevolent  Mature  steps  in  and  by  a  process  of 
selective  slaughter  makes  the  consciousness  in  such  circum- 
stances practically  impossible."  * 

As  this  argument  is  a  typical  one  of  the  necessitarian,  it  may 
be  prudent  to  give  it  the  most  searching  examination.  It  is  a 
charge  of  illusion  against  the  consciousness  of  freedom  and  an 
attempt  to  prove  the  beneficent  character  of  that  illusion.  But 
it  is  astounding  that  any  one  making  the  slightest  pretension  to 
philosophic  intelligence,  would  resort  to  the  kind  of  argument 
here  used,  not  to  say  anything  of  the  deficiency  in  the  sense  of 
humor  betrayed  by  it.  Had  Mr.  Balfour  contented  himself  with 
charging  the  possibility  of  illusion  against  consciousness,  as  the 
skeptic  would  do,  he  might  have  left  the  burden  of  proof  for  its 
validity  upon  the  freedomist.  But  to  attempt  to  prove  the 
charge  when  he  has  to  accept  the  testimony  of  consciousness  in 
that  proof,  shows  a  great  lack  of  logical  acumen,  and  then  to 
prove  the  beneficence  of  an  illusion  is  worse  still.  Now,  it  may 
be  true  that  consciousness  is  an  illusory  guide,  but  tliis  is  noth- 
ing in  favor  of  necessitarianism,  as  most  pei'sons  intend  it  shall 
be,  when  they  attempt  to  throw  discredit  upon  the  testimony 
of  consciousness.  If  it  be  illusory,  argument  on  either  side 
of  the  question  is  perfectly  futile ;  for  I  liave  nc»thing  but 
the  testimony  of  consciousness  to  the  cogency  of  the  argu- 
ment for  necessitarianism.  But  if  tliat  authority  be  im- 
})eached,  I  am  a.s  much  in  the  dark  about  tliat  theory  as 
I  can  possibly  l)c  about  frecdomism.  We  must,  tliorefore, 
charge  an  ilhision  against  Mr.  Balfour,  in  attaching  any 
*  Inlernalionnl  Journal  <if  Eihici^,  vol.  iv.,  p.  421-422. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WHL  215 

weight  to  the  argument  for  necessitarianism  after  rejecting  the 
testimony  of  consciousness.  Again,  why  be  so  defective  in  the 
sense  of  humor  as  to  impeach  the  authority  of  consciousness, 
while  treating  the  purely  logical  or  ratiocinative  argument 
against  freedom  as  if  it  were  free  from  illusion,  when  the  fact  is, 
that  reasoning  is  perhaps  a  hundred-fold  more  exposed  to  illu- 
sion than  immediate  perception  ?  An  argument  is  exposed  to  the 
whole  category  of  fallacies,  and  yet  the  author  does  not  seem  to 
suspect  that  fact,  and  as  a  consequence  to  see  that  the  cumulative 
argument  for  determinism  is  exposed  to  more  weaknesses  than 
the  consciousness  of  freedom.  This  is  the  second  illusion  found 
in  his  view  of  the  matter.  But  there  is  another.  "When  he 
talks  about  man  "as  distinguished  from  his  character,"  he  is  de- 
luded again  h\  the  equivocal  nature  of  the  term  "character." 
Xo  one  ever  distinguishes  himself  from  his  "  character  "  taken  as 
his  nature,  but  only  as  his  habits.  The  latter,  Ave  have  shown,  is 
never  a  cause,  never  necessitates  volition,  but  may  be  changed ; 
the  former  does  not  conflict  with  freedom.  Again,  the  illusion  to 
"  surroundings  "  shows  that  he  is  introducing  the  conception  of 
liberty  or  physico-political  freedom  into  the  case,  which,  what- 
ever js  said  aliout  it,  has  no  relevancy  whatever  to  the  question 
about  velleity  or  alternative  choice.  This  is  another  illusion. 
Then  again,  why  would  not  the  sense  of  freedon  be  as  beneficent 
for  beings  that  ai'e  not  self-conscious  as  for  those  that  are  ?  It  is 
true  that  it  could  have  no  meaning  to  such  beings.  But  how 
could  it  have  any  meaning  to  self-conscious  beings,  when  it  is 
false  and  illusory  ?  Is  not  the  fact  that  it  is  an  illusion  the  very 
thing  that  takes  away  its  meaning  ?  Still  worse  is  the  supposition 
that  the  illusion  has  a  beneficial  influence  on  life,  because,  being 
an  illusion,  this  conclusion  can  only  mean  that  there  is  not  the 
power  of  alternative  choice,  so  that  the  sense  of  freedom  cannot 
alter  the  course  of  volition.  If  it  were  not  an  illusion,  it  might 
do  so,  but  the  course  of  a  man's  conduct  is  so  fixed  by  his 
nature,  according  to  the  supposition  that  an  illusory  l)elief  in 
his  freedom  is  only  another  name  for  events  which  have  no  in- 
fluence upon  choice.     Moreover,  what  becomes  of  the  illusion 


216  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  its  beneficence  Avlien  its  nature  is  discovered?  It  is  no 
longer  an  illusion  to  the  man  who  discovers  the  fact.  On  the 
contrary,  Nature  has  j^hived  a  trick  upon  hiju  in  making  him 
believe  he  is  free,  and  then  robbed  the  belief  of  its  supposed 
beneficence  by  the  philosophic  revelation  of  its  illusory  char- 
acter. Still  again,  -svhat  sort  of  beneficence  can  any  man  attrib- 
ute to  ^hat  is  false ?  Would  Mr.  Balfour  encourage  the  belief 
in  the  philosophy  of  any  man  because  he  believed  it  beneficent 
though  false?  And  yet  his  ethics  would  require  him  to 'pre- 
serve the  beneficent  as  opposed  to  the  maleficent  at  all  hazard, 
especially  as  Kature,  according  to  his  own  view,  has  valued 
falsehood  more  highly  than  the  truth.  To  illustrate  again,  if  a 
man's  nature  inevitably  inclined  him  to  the  wrong,  how  much 
could  his  belief,  that  he  was  able  to  do  the  right,  affect  his  con- 
duct? By  supposition  only  the  bad  is  possible  in  the  case,  so 
that  a  belief  to  the  contrary  is  not  only  false,  illusory,  and  iu- 
eflx^ctive,  but  it  is  not  beneficent.  To  assert  the  beneficence  of 
an  illusion  is  the  last  resort  of  a  desiderate  case,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  ridiculous  plight  in  which  Nature  is  placed  by  the  per- 
petual lial)ility  of  having  her  purposes  foiled  by  man's  discovery 
of  her  illusions.  The  strangest  thing  of  all,  h6wever,  is  to  find 
men  so  confident  that  so  universal,  persistent,  and  firm  a  feeling 
as  the  consciousness  of  freedom  should  be  probaljly  illusory, 
while  there  is  not  the  slightest  suspicion  of  either  the  opinion  or 
the  argument  asserting  that  illusion.  One  would  think  that 
men  acquainted  with  the  pitfalls  of  logic  and  with  the  liability 
of  individual  opinion  to  errors  of  conception  and  judgment 
would  exhibit  a  little  more  modesty  and  humility  in  attacking  a 
conviction  which  they  practically  admit  cannot  be  dislodged, 
and  would  rather  suspect  that  thorough  scientific  imtiencc  and 
analysis  would  discover  a  truth  in  it  and  illusion  in  the  reason- 
ing that  seeks  to  impeach  so  firm  a  conviction. 

We  admit  frankly,  however,  that  the  argument  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  freedom  has  its  weakness  ;  but  it  is  not  the  fact  that 
it  may  be  illusory.  Such  a  supposition,  as  already  remarked, 
simj)ly  puts  a  stop  to  all  discussion  on  one  side  or  the  other. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  217 

The  real  weakness  of  the  appeal  to  consciousness  is  that  it  can 
never  have  more  than  a  subjective  or  individual  value.  It  could 
not  prove  anything  except  for  the  individual  who  has  it,  and 
others  might  not  possess  any  such  a  power.  Nor  with  the  com- 
plex elements  entering  into  the  idea  of  freedom  and  the  evidence 
for  it  could  any  except  the  persons  professing  consciousness  of  it 
be  absolutely  assured  as  to  what  the  consciousness  contained.  We 
could  only  say,  that  if  it  be  the  same  for  all  persons,  or  for  the 
majority,  or  even  for  any  number  of  maukind,  it  will  have  its 
value  determined  by  its  extent,  but  not  beyond  the  number  hav- 
ing it.  But  I  do  not  think  that  its  testimony  can  be  either 
proved  or  impeached.  It  is  itself  the  last  court  of  resort  for 
such  truths  as  we  actually  believe,  and  it  proves  too  much  to 
discredit  it  and  then  accept  other  beliefs  which  it  attests.  I 
should  prefer  to  accept  it  where  it  honestly  attests  its  deliverances 
and  where  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  normal  and 
healthy.  If  abnormal  or  unhealthy  we  simply  know  nothing 
about  it  one  way  or  the  other,  for  we  cannot  tell  its  contents. 
Its  value  even  in  normal  cases  depends  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  consciousness  of  others  is  like  our  own  where  we  feel  forced 
to  accept  its  testimony  or  give  up  all  convictions  whatever.  It 
is,  perhaps,  the  weakness  of  that  assumption  that  impairs  its 
objective  testimony  but  not  its  subjective  value.  Moreover,  in 
regard  to  it  objectively  it  might  not  exist  at  all  in  some  individ- 
uals, and  it  is  even  conceivable  that  consciousness  might  in  some 
cases  assert  that  the  agent  was  not  able  to  do  otherwise  than  he 
did.  That  is,  the  person  might  be  conscious  of  actions  which  he 
did  not  originate.  These,  of  course,  are  what  are  called  autom- 
atisms, such  as  twitching,  automatic  writing,  and  involuntary 
movements  generally,  which  are  not  volitions  at  all.  I  would 
also  admit  the  conceivability  of  volitions,  of  which  consciousness 
might  attest  the  impossibility  of  alternative  choice.  But  this 
fact  would  not  impeach  the  consciousness  of  any  one  else  to  the 
contrary  regarding  himself  It  could  not  extend  its  value 
beyond  the  person  having  it,  and  if  I  had  reason  to  believe  that 
such  a  consciousness  were  sufficiently  normal  I  should  accept  it, 


218  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

while  I  would  accept  the  coutrarv  testimony  of  any  other  normal 
consciousness.  This,  of  course,  unfits  the  appeal  to  consciousness 
for  objective  proof,  which,  after  all,  is  the  one  thing  needed.  But 
where  it  has  been  the  invariable  and,  as  Mr.  Balfour  says,  the 
"inevitable"  belief  of  all  men  in  all  ages,  circumstances,  and 
condition  of  development,  its  testimony  cannot  be  set  aside  until 
the  logical  argument  can  be  purified  of  all  possibility  and  sus- 
picion of  fallacy.  We  turn  next  to  an  argument  that  has 
objective  weight. 

4.  The  Sense  of  Duty. — This  is  the  famous  argument  of 
Kant  for  the  fact  of  freedom.  It  has  objective  value  because 
whoever  admits  that  it  exists  in  any  person  will  find  that  he 
must  choose  between  making  the  idea  of  duty  useless  or  invalid 
and  admitting  the  fact  of  freedom.  Now,  it  is  eveiywhere  ad- 
mitted that  the  sense  of  duty,  "the  categorical  imperative,"  is  a 
very  widespread  phenomenon,  as  general  as  rational  beings  in 
the  wider  import  of  that  term.  What  it  implies  when  it  exists 
or  can  be  appreciated  at  all  is  that  the  act  enjoined  by  it  is  a 
possible  one  and  yet  might  not  be  performed.  If  all  men  did 
what  is  right  there  would  be  no  need  of  such  an  imperative. 
But  there  are  constant  deviations  from  the  path  of  virtue,  and 
where  temptation  may  lead  the  agent  aside  the  sense  of  duty 
comes  in  to  command  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal  and  assumes  that 
the  agent  can  obey.  But  if  he  cannot  do  so,  this  feeling  is 
powerless  to  effect  anything.  If  the  will  be  inevitably  set  in 
any  direction,  it  is  impossible  for  the  opposite  alternative  to  be 
chosen,  according  to  necessitarianism,  and  the  sense  of  duty  with 
the  implied  ability  of  alternative  choice  is  an  illusion,  and  it 
would  seem  a  rather  maleficent  one  at  that,  judging  from  the 
amount  of  pleasure  of  which  it  is  supposed  to  cause  the  sacrifice. 
Moreover,  an  obligation  to  do  the  impossi]>le  is  one  of  the 
absurdcst  suppositions  ever  entertained  by  a  person  professing 
to  be  rational.  If  the  sense  of  duty  were  assumed  to  coincide 
always  witli  the  direction  of  the  will  wc  might  sustain  the  thesis 
of  necessitarianism.  But  such  a  conception  equally  proves  its 
uselessncss,    because    the    individual's   nature    is    sufficient    to 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  219 

accomplisli  the  result  by  supposition  without  the  presence  of 
such  a  phenomenon.  It  woukl  simply  be  a  fifth  wheel  to  the 
coach  and  more  likely  a  useless  incumbrance  than  an  aid. 
Moreover,  we  know  as  a  fact  that  it  more  often  opposes  natural 
inclination  instead  of  coinciding  with  it,  and  in  fact  mental 
economy  seems  to  have  intended  it  to  perform  this  very  func- 
tion, whatever  else  it  may  be  supposed  to  do,  and  if  the  course 
opposed  to  natural  inclination  be  imj^ossible,  as  necessitarianism 
must  assert,  the  sense  of  duty  is  quite  as  useless  again  as  in  the 
first  case,  as  being  unable  to  determine  the  will  in  a  direction 
opposed  to  Avhat  it  must  go.  The  only  possible  resource  left  to 
the  necessitarian  is  to  deny  the  validity  of  obligation  and  to 
declare  it  an  illusion,  the  ultima  Thule  of  every  man  who  finds 
himself  cornered  by  logic  and  fact.  The  better  way,  however, 
is  to  frankly  admit  the  validity  and  influence  of  the  sense  of 
duty  and  to  accept  what  it  implies,  because  the  consequence  of 
denying  it  is  such  a  redudio  ad  absurditm  of  necessitarianism  as 
to  astonish  rational  men  that  the  theory  could  ever  have  been 
proposed.  By  asserting  necessitarianism  we  are  obliged  to 
assert  the  illusory  character  of  consciousness  and  the  sense  of 
duty.  By  admitting  freedom  c»f  some  kind  no  such  arduous 
task  is  imposed  upon  us,  but  the  various  facts  of  our  rational 
nature  are  completely  reconciled, 

V.  CO^X'LUSIOX.— In  concluding  the  discussion  of  free-will  it 
is  most  important  to  remark  that  the  object  of  sustaining  it  has 
been  to  furnish  a  basis  for  our  practical  attitude  of  mind  and 
conduct  toward  men,  K  the  doctrine  of  freedom  be  declared  an 
illusion  our  business  is  to  eliminate  it,  its  vocabulary,  and  all  its 
implications  from  the  provinces  of  philosophy  and  practical 
life.  It  has  no  business  there  unless  it  be  true,  or  at  least  con- 
tains important  elements  of  truth.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we 
adoi)tcd  the  position  of  the  necessitarian  without  qualification  we 
should  find  ourselves  much  embarrassed  for  a  reason  for  certain 
institutions  which  we  still  insist  upon  maintaining,  namely,  pun- 
ishment and  the  distribution  of  praise  and  blame.  If  in  deny- 
ing a  man's  freedcmi  we  meau  to  sav  that  he  is  not  the  cause  of 


220  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

Lis  own  actions  it  is  perfectly  absurd  to  use  any  measures 
against  him  to  prevent  his  conduct,  because  they  could  not  be 
effective  and  because  every  method  of  removing  an  effect  must 
divert  or  remove  the  cause.  If,  then,  man  is  the  cause  of  his  own 
volitions,  there  is  some  need  for  the  idea  of  freedom,  if  only  in 
the  sense  of  spontaneity,  in  order  to  determine  and  to  justify  our 
treatment  of  him.  The  fact  is  that  there  is  territory  for  both 
doctrines  regarding  action.  Many  actions  in  the  world — physical, 
reflex,  automatic,  and  perhaps  some  others — are  undoubtedly 
necessitated,  beyond  all  possibility  of  being  free  in  any  sense,  as 
not  being  caused  by  the  subject  in  which  they  occur.  But 
■when  the  subject  is  a  cause  of  action  we  require  a  theoretical 
position,  not  only  to  account  for  them,  but  also  to  serve  as  a  basis 
for  institutions  and  hal)its  conditioned  by  it.  Hence  I  contend 
that  there  must  be  room  for  freedom  of  some  kind,  if  corrective 
discipline  is  to  be  rational  at  all.  If  a  man  can  act  only  in  one 
way,  according  to  a  fixed  character,  it  is  useless  to  try  to  make 
him  act  in  any  other  way.  To  do  so  assumes  that  his  nature  is 
not  fixed  beyond  modification  by  his  own  capacity  of  adjustment. 
There  is  no  use  to  reply  that  a  change  of  environment  creates  a  new 
motive,  because  by  supposition  the  agent  is  not  capable  of 
any  other  motive,  his  character  and  tendency  being  fixed  or 
inflexible.  A  being  who  is  capable  of  having  more  than  one 
kind  of  motive  is  not  only  intelligent,  but  must  have  the  power 
to  decide  between  this  and  the  natural  one.  Otherwise  what- 
ever adjustment  he  shows  must  be  merely  passive.  With  this 
passive  adjustment  given,  of  course,  nothing  can  be  said  or  done, 
because  it  would  be  necessitated.  But  man's  conscious  adjust- 
ment to  environment  is  a  different  thing.  Had  he  no  power 
to  act  in  any  but  a  fixed  way,  as  determined  by  his  ancestry,  or 
by  a  nature  of  only  one  impulse,  he  could  not  adjust  himself  even 
if  he  could  feel  a  new  motive.  The  capacity  of  conscious  adjust-, 
ment  admitted  by  all  thinkers  practically  m  freedom  of  the 
highest  type,  and  it  is  sLstonishing  that  men  admitting  it  cannot 
get  away  from  the  illusions  about  the  necessity  of  action  accord- 
ing to  character  and  its  supposed  o])po.sition  to  the  idea  of  freedom. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WHL  221 

Take  a  practical  illustratiou.  We  usually  say  that  self-pres- 
ervation is  instinctive,  and  probably  it  is.  No  doubt  the  largest 
number  of  our  ordinary  actions  have  reference  to  the  continu- 
ance and  protection  of  our  lives.  We  seem  to  have  a  perfectly 
uniform  and  fixed  tendency  to  maintain  life  as  long  as  it  is  pos- 
sible for  us  to  do  so.  But  shall  we  say  that  our  nature  or  char- 
acter is  so  absolutely  fixed  that  we  cannot  take  our  own  lives? 
Yet  this  must  be  the  consequence  of  any  necessity  for  preserving 
them.  But  it  would  be  replied  that  at  the  moment  of  suicide 
the  agent  could  no  more  help  committing  that  act  than  he  could 
preserving  his  life  before.  Both  are  equally  necessitated.  But 
what  becomes  of  the  idea  of  the  subject's  nature  or  character  in 
the  case  ?  By  supposition  his  character  predestines  or  prede- 
termines him  to  preserve  life  and  he  cannot  destroy  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  suicide  attests  what  his  character  is,  why  did  it 
not  necessitate  the  act  of  self-destruction  before  ?  Are  we  to 
suppose  two  opposite  characters  in  the  same  subject  existing  side 
by  side  and  one  of  them  wholly  inefiective  until  a  certain 
moment  ?  But  if  character  can  be  ineffective  for  so  long  a  time, 
as  is  usually  the  case  with  suicides,  why  attribute  necessary 
causation  to  it  at  all  ?  In  fact  such  an  illustration  only  proves 
the  absurdity  of  arguing  about  the  question  in  terms  of  "  char- 
acter "  until  we  have  determined  what  we  mean  by  it,  and  after 
pointing  out  the  equivocation  in  it,  as  we  have  done,  we  should 
perceive  that  it  is  no  longer  serviceable  for  clear  thinking  in  a 
problem  like  free  will.  Moreover,  the  case  also  shows  that  we 
are  obliged  to  make  room  for  freedom  in  some  sense  in  order  to 
prevent  our  minds  from  becoming  entangled  in  a  mass  of  ab- 
surdities ;  and  this  is  all  that  needs  to  be  effected,  though  it  is  a 
fact  that  the  idea  performs  other  services  at  the  same  time. 

But  it  is  not  necessary,  in  sustaining  a  doctrine  of  freedom,  to 
hold  either  that  all  men  are  free,  or  that,  if  free,  they  are  all 
equally  free,  or  even  that  the  same  man  is  equally  free  at  all 
times  in  regard  to  all  actions  connected  with  his  will.  For  we 
may  be  confronted  with  the  doubtful  cases  involved  in  insanity 
and  those  of  imperfect  development.     So  far  as  the  theory  and 


222  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

conception  of  freedom  are  concerned,  there  may  be  many  indi- 
vidual exceptions  to  it  without  interfering  with  it  as  a  principle 
for  sane  and  rational  beings.  The  first  object  is  to  show  the 
conditions  and  nature  of  freedom.  It  is  another  thing  to  show 
how  many  possess  it.  As  defined  it  is  possible  over  a  very  wide 
range  of  conscious  life.  The  conception  of  it  is  not  even  limited 
to  man,  and  it  may  be  a  question  whether  it  is  to  be  excluded 
wherever  consciousness  is  found.  But  in  thus  admitting  the 
possibility  of  its  very  Avide  prevalence  we  must  not  confuse  it 
with  responsibility,  which  we  have  still  to  define  and  discuss. 
AVe  must  keep  distinctly  in  mind  the  conception  to  which  free- 
dom is  limited,  in  so  far  as  it  is  of  practical  imjjortance  to 
Ethics,  and  tliat  is  the  capacity  for  alternative  choice.  In  this 
capacity  we  do  not  necessarily  include  either  the  tendency  or 
the  habit  of  deliberation.  For  freedom  may  exist  without  de- 
liberation, though  we  may  lack  the  desired  evidence  for  it. 
Hence  it  is  not  the  tendency  to  think  of  alternatives  and 
hesitate  about  them  that  constitutes  freedom,  but  the  con- 
sciousness that  there  are  alternatives  and  the  capacity  for  choice. 
Nor  is  it  indifference  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  various  courses 
oflTered  to  the  will.  There  may  be  as  many  of  these  as  possible, 
and  the  inclination  for  a  particular  one  may  be  as  decided  as  we 
like,  if  only  in  the  consciousness  of  another  and  the  feeling  of  duty 
toward  it  we  find  the  capacity  to  choose  it.  Yellcity,  thus,  is 
not  mere  equilibrium  mechanically  or  morally  conceived,  which 
is  the  notion  often  entertained,  but  it' is  the  capacity  for  active  or 
voluntary  adjustment  to  environment.  This  exists  without  a 
doubt  to  all  who  take  care  to  analyze  the  problem  correctly. 
But  it  could  not  be  a  fact  if  man  were  the  mere  puppet  of  that 
infiuence,  or  if  his  nature  were  so  inflexible  that  he  had  capacity 
for  only  one  kind  and  direction  of  his  conduct.  Once  admit  the 
capacity  for  conscious  adjustment  to  a  cluinging  environment, 
which  we  described  as  a  quality  of  rational  beings,  and  the 
whole  case  of  freedom  is  proved.  It  may  not  be  so  with  respon- 
sibility, but  that  we  have  still  to  consider.  AVe  have,  however, 
to  establish   its  first  and   indispensable   condition,  which  is  the 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  WILL  223 

possibility  of  choice  or  of  alternative  choice,  and  if  the  facts  pro- 
duced do  not  prove  it  as  defined,  it  will  have  to  remain  un- 
solved until  better  arguments  can  be  produced.  But  if  the  case 
is  made  out  in  its  favor,  we  have  a  basis  for  responsibility  and 
punishment  as  applied  in  the  course  of  history,  and  that  is  a 
very  important  desideratum  in  the  theory  of  Ethics.  The 
extent  of  this  importance  will  be  seen  when  we  take  up  those 
problems  which  are  now  to  follow. 

Heferenccs. — Aristotle:  Nichomachean  Ethics,  Book  III.;  Calderwood : 
Handbook  of  Moral  Philosoi^hy,  Part  III.,  pp.  170-205  (Fourteenth 
Edition);  Mackenzie:  Manual  of  Ethics,  Cliap.  YIII. ;  Alexander:  Moral 
Order  and  Progress,  Book  III.,  Cliap.  III.,  Sec.  II.,  pp.  33(3-341 ;  Martineau : 
Study  of  Religion,  Vol.  II.,  Book  III.,  Chap.  II. ;  Murray :  Introduction 
to  Ethics,  Chap.  III. ;  Dewey :  Outlines  of  Ethics,  Chap.  III.,  pp.  J[o8-166  ; 
Carpenter :  Mental  Physiology  (Preface  to  the  Fourth  Edition) ;  Hazard 
(Rowland  G.) :  Freedom  in  Mind  and  Willing,  and  Causation  and  Free- 
dom in  Willing;  Sidgwick:  Methods  of  Ethics,  Book  I.,  Chap.  Y.  ;  Fowl- 
er and  Wilson :  Principles  of  Morals,  Vol.  II.,  Chap.  IX.;  J.  S,  MiU: 
Logic,  Book  VI.,  Chap.  II. ;  Hume :  Treatise  of  the  Passions,  Part  III., 
Sees.  I.-II. ;  Bowne:  Principles  of  Ethics,  Chap.  VI.  ;  Sully:  The  Human 
Mind,  Vol.  II.,  Chaps.  XVII.-XVIIL,  especially  pp.  292-295;  Huxley: 
Essays,  Methods,  and  Results,  pp.  199-251;  Spencer:  Principles  of 
Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  Part  IV.,  Chap.  IX.,  pp.  495-506 ;  Philosophic  Re- 
view, Vol.  III.,  pp.  1-13,  278-288,  385-411;  Psychological  Review, 
Vol.  I.,  pp.  217-229;  T.  H.  Green:  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  Book  I., 
Chap.  III.,  and  Book  II.,  Chap.  I. ;  Leslie  Stephen  :  Science  of  Ethics, 
Chap.  VII.,  pp.  278-293 ;  see  same  author,  An  Agnostic's  Apology, 
pp.  18-25. 


CHAPTER  V. 

RESPONSIBILITY   AND    PUNISHMENT. 

I.  INTBODUCTION.— Freedom,  Responsibility,  and  Punish- 
ment are  questions  that  go  together  in  Ethics,  and  the  first  con- 
ditions the  second,  and  the  second  the  third,  and  all  of  them 
are  very  complex  conceptions.  We  have  found  how  complex 
that  of  freedom  is,  and  responsibility  is  much  more  complicated, 
though  usually  identified  with  freedom.  Punislnnent,  strictly 
considered  as  a  process  or  defined  as  a  mode  of  inflicting  pain, 
seems  very  simple.  But  in  its  object  and  methods  it  appears 
quite  complex  and  is  determined  accordingly  by  various  condi- 
tions. The  important  general  principle  to  be  kci)t  in  mind  here, 
however,  is  that  both  responsibility  and  punishment  must  go 
overboard  if  freedom  in  some  sense  is  not  true,  wliile  the  inno- 
vation which  we  shall  introduce  into  the  doctrine  is  that  an 
additional  element  nmst  be  added  to  freedom  in  order  to  create 
responsil)ility  in  its  full  extent,  or  in  the  sense  in  Avhich  Ethics 
usually  employs  the  term.  This  is  to  say,  that  freedom  may 
exist  and  yet  responsibility  not  be  realized  at  all,  though  the 
converse  is  not  true.     Let  us  examine  the  question. 

II.  RESPONSIBILITY. —Vs^e  have  remarked  that  freedom 
and  responsibility  are  very  often  confused  with  each  other,  and 
that  the  controversy  centering  al)out  the  former  properly  per- 
tains to  the  latter.  Moreover,  it  is  much  more  complex  than 
the  notion  of  freedom  and  is  conditioned  by  every  form  of  it. 
That  i.<  to  say,  a  man's  responsibility  is  very  much  affected  by 
the  influence  of  environment,  confirmed  habits,  hereditary  incli- 
nations, and  the  peculiarities  of  character,  while  his  freedom  as 
capacity  for  adjuslment  may  not  be.     Wc  shall  be  told,  thou, 

224 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUNISIUIEKT  225 

that  the  long  argumeut  for  freedom  has  very  little  importance, 
if  the  claim  of  the  necessitarian  against  freedom  be  admitted  to 
apply  against  responsibility.  It  will  be  said  that  this  is  only 
admitting  the  case  under  another  name,  that  after  all,  what  the 
necessitarian  meant  is  true.  If  responsibility  is  to  be  subjected 
to  all  sorts  of  limitations  from  both  internal  and  external  influ- 
ences, and  if  it  is  admitted  to  be  absent  in  cases  where  there  is 
perfect  freedom,  it  will  be  said  we  have  not  proved  Avhat  we  seem 
to  have  proved,  and  that  the  necessitarian  has  the  right  concep- 
tion of  the  problem  in  spite  of  his  language  and  of  the  arguments 
Ave  have  directed  against  him. 

This,  we  grant,  would  be  a  fair  way  of  putting  the  matter  as 
long  as  our  analysis  remains  incomplete.  But  when  we  have 
shown  what  enters  into  responsibility  as  usually  understood, 
and  what  freedom  without  responsibility  conditions  in  existing 
social  and  moral  institutions,  which  would  be  wholly  unjustifiable 
without  freedom,  the  force  of  that  criticism  will  be  entirely 
lost.  AVhat  we  complain  of  is,  that  philosophers  have  confused 
two  wholly  distinct  things,  one  conditioning  the  other,  by  iden- 
tifying them  ;  and  then  by  denying  one  have  denied  the  other 
by  implication.  Responsibility  implies  freedom  of  some  kind, 
and  in  its  proper  form  contains  much  more  at  the  same  time. 
But  many  of  the  arguments  employed  against  freedom  have  no 
relevancy  whatever  to  any  question  of  the  capacity  of  alternative 
choice,  but  only  to  responsibility,  and  in  showing  man's  limita- 
tions in  regard  to  responsibility,  while  assuming  it  to  be  the  same 
as  freedom,  the  necessitarian  cuts  away  the  foundations  of  institu- 
tions which  neither  he  nor  the  freedomist  will  surrender.  Hence, 
so  far  from  admitting  in  effect  the  claim  of  the  necessitarian  the 
position  here  defended  only  makes  it  possible  to  be  consistent  in 
theory  and  practice,  while  it  points  out  a  new  and  humane  conse- 
quence involved  in  the  partial  truth  represented  by  necessitarian- 
ism and  wliich  its  advocates  seem  not  to  have  suspected.  This 
is  because  they  have  not  analyzed  their  problem.  The  impor- 
tance of  this  will  appear  in  tlie  proper  place.  We  must  before 
discussing  its  practical  meaning  further  define  and  analyze  the 


226  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

conception,  remembering,  however,  that  we  shall  have  a  direct 
reference  to  the  methods  of  Punishment. 

1st.  Definition  of  Responsibility. — The  conception  is  too  com- 
plex to  be  stated  adequately  in  brief  terms.  But  it  will  be  helpful 
to  indicate  that  its  primary  element  is  imputahility ;  indeed  this 
term  is  often  taken  as  identical  with  it.  Etymologically  re- 
sponsibility means  a  reply  to  a  charge.  In  ancient  law  courts 
the  accused  had  to  answer  to  the  charge  made  against  him, 
and  this  was  called  his  "responsibility."  But  the  idea  was 
transferi'ed  to  him  as  the  guilty  party  and  came  to  denote 
that  he  had  not  only  to  "answer  for,"  but  also  "to  account 
for,"  the  crime,  which  meant  that  he  should  pay  the  fine  or 
penalty.  The  crime  was  imputed  to  him  as  its  cause.  From 
the  imputation  of  crime,  the  term  finally  came  to  denote  in 
Ethics  the  imputation  of  any  act,  good  or  bad,  to  the  indi- 
vidual, and  so  denoted  causal  capacity,  with  the  possibility  of 
alternative  choice.  From  this  it  passed  to  the  idea  that  the 
agent  was  morally  pralieivorthy  or  blameworthy  in  his  voluntary 
acts,  a  conception  wholly  distinct  from  freedom,  but  conditioned 
bv  it.  But  as  the  term  has  several  loose  significations  the 
broadest  meaning  which  we  can  give  covering  all  of  them  is 
imputahility,  or  tlie  reference  of  certain  qualities  to  the  agent 
which  make  him  liable  to  the  consequences  of  his  actions.  But  the 
distinct  senses  in  which  this  is  true,  and  the  limitations  under 
which  it  can  be  practically  applied,  must  be  determined  before 
defining  it  more  fully.  We  often  use  the  term  responsibility  in 
a  metaphorical  sense,  and  often  as  identical  with  freedom,  when 
in  fact  it  is  simple  imputahility  which  we  have  in  mind.  "We 
must,  therefore,  examine  the  three  forms  of  imputal)ility  as  the 
generic  idea  of  freedom  and  responsibility. 

2d.  Forms  of  Imputability. — Tlitre  are  three  fijrnis  of  this 
conception  in  the  common  usage  of  languagi',  though  the  term 
which  does  duty  for  them  is  responsibility,  which  we  wish  here 
to  give  its  proper  definite  meaning  distinct  from  freedom.  The 
three  forms  of  imputability  which  are  to  l)e  separately  dis- 
cussed are  cmisnl,  clectirc,  and  moral  imputability.     The  last  is 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUXISILMENT  227 

synonymous  with  responsibility.     Let  us  take  up  each  one   in 
its  order. 

1.  Causal  I:mputability. — This  is  nothing  but  the  refer- 
ence of  an  act  to  its  cause,  and  in  the  application  of  the  term 
responsibility  to  describe  it,  as  is  done  at  times,  there  is  nothing 
but  a  metaphorical  sense  given  to  it.  Thus  we  say  "  the  weather 
is  responsible  for  the  floods,"  or  "  the  moonlight  is  responsible  for 
much  sentimental  j)oetry,"  or  "  Bruin  is  responsible  for  his  good 
behavior,"  etc.  But  probably  very  little  confusion  in  Ethics  is 
occasioned  by  an  application  so  distinct  from  the  proper  sense  of 
responsibility.  Such  a  use  does  not  distinguish  at  all  between 
necessary  and  free  causes.  It  api)lies  equally  to  physical 
events  and  to  spontaneous  actions,  like  automatic,  instinctive,  and 
possibly  impulsive  movements.  But  rejecting  the  ajiplication 
of  responsibility  to  the  subjects  of  such  actions  does  not  re- 
move the  value  of  using  the  phrase  causal  imputability ;  for 
this  expression  means  to  imply  a  certain  method  of  dealing  with 
such  causes  or  agents  in  the  economy  of  social  order.  The 
organization  of  society  requires  that  certain  events  and  actions 
be  prevented,  if  possible,  and  this  can  be  effected  only  by  treat- 
ing their  causes.  If  we  can  remove  the  causes  Ave  reasonably 
expect  to  get  rid  of  the  effects.  In  the  appHcation  of  methods  to 
this  end  there  is  no  consideration  of  rights  or  duties — that  is,  there 
are  no  limitations  to  our  choice  of  methods — until  we  come  to 
sentient  beings,  where  we  are  supposed  to  treat,  at  least  the 
higher  and  more  harmless  order  of  them,  with  due  respect  and 
compassion.  If  they  can  be  said  to  have  any  rights  at  all,  we 
have  to  treat  them  accordingly ;  and  the  same  can  be  said  of  ir- 
rational members  of  the  human  race,  such  as  the  insane, 
imbeciles,  etc.  Throwing  out  physical  causes  as  not  involving 
any  limitations  of  method  whatever,  causal  imputability,  as 
representing  spontaneity  in  the  agent,  will  determine  its  own 
method  of  treating  such  agents,  of  permitting  their  liberty  when 
their  spontaneous  actions  do  not  conflict  with  social  welfare,  and 
of  preventing  them  when  they  do  so  conflict.  There  is,  there- 
fore,  an  important  place  for  the  idea   of  causal  imputability 


228  ELEMEyrS  OF  ETHICS 

in  ethical  doctrine,  since  it  enables  us  to  use  the  freedom  of  spon- 
taneity for  the  justification  of  a  certain  policy  toward  individuals 
having  it  and  having  nothing  else. 

2.  Elective  Imputability. — This  is  the  imputation  of 
actions  to  beings  who  possess  elective  choice  or  velleity.  It  is 
identical  with  freedom  as  we  have  defended  it  in  the  course  of 
our  discussion,  and  it  probably  exists  to  some  extent  wherever 
consciousness  is  found,  and  certainly  in  its  full  extent  wherever 
reflective  or  deliberative  consciousness  exists.  Here  again  the 
term  responsibility  is  purely  metaphorical  in  its  application  to 
the  ca.se,  because  this  form  of  imputability  does  not  necessarily 
require  a  moral  nature  to  be  in'esent.  The  capacity  for  alter- 
native choice  is  all  that  is  necessary  for  it.  This  will  cover  all 
the  voluntary  actions  of  at  least  the  higher  order  of  animal  ex- 
istence, and  such  of  the  insane  and  imbecile  as  can  reasonably 
be  supposed  to  have  retained  their  elective  power  over  alterna- 
tives. This  condition  will  determine  distinct  methods  of  treat- 
ing such  agents  in  the  social  economy,  as  compared  with  those 
who  possess  nothiug  but  spontaneity.  Freedom,  as  we  have  de- 
fined it,  is  possessed  in  the  full  measure  by  agents  to  whom 
elective  imputability  is  applicable,  because  they  are  the  same 
thing  in  diflferent  relations,  freedom  or  velleity  being  looked  at 
as  a  capacity  of  the  subject  and  elective  imputability  as  a 
liability  to  certain  consequences  for  his  conduct.  No  punish- 
ment, strictly  speaking,  can  be  applied  to  such  agents,  nor  re- 
wards of  an  opposite  kind.  They  are  amenable  only  to  such 
methods  as  will  either  do  nothing  but  prevent  their  conflict 
with  social  order,  or  will  lioth  prevent  it  and  modify  conduct  so 
that  the  agent  can  have  his  liberty.  But  there  is  no  attribution 
of  praise  or  blame  to  such  agents,  for  they  require  more  than 
mere  freedom  to  be  moral.  That  is  an  indispensable  condition, 
but  it  is  not  the  only  one. 

3.  ]MoRAL  Imputakilitv,  oi:  Kesi-onsidility. — This  is  a 
much  more  comi)lex  conception  than  the  others  and  must  be 
considered  very  fully,  because  we  wish  to  distinguish  it  quite 
radically  from   freedom,   with   which   it   is  too  often   confused. 


RESPONSIBILITY  ASD  PUNISHMENT  229 

To  define  it,  therefore,  we  have :  Responsibility  is  that  form  of 
imputabilify  which  involves  the  existence  of  conscience  and  free- 
dom. Conscience  is  here  taken  as  equivalent  to  a  moral  nature, 
or  the  capacity  for  distinguishing  between  right  and  wrong,  and 
of  feeling  a  sense  of  obligation.  Freedom  also  is  taken  in  every 
sense  of  the  term,  including  liberty,  spontaneity,  and  velleity. 
The  difference  between  responsibility  and  freedom,  as  defended 
above,  is  api^areut  from  this  definition,  and  it  explains  why  we 
regarded  the  freedom  of  velleity  as  conditioning  responsibility 
and  yet  as  possibly  existing  without  it.  The  importance  of  the 
distinction  will  appear  when  we  come  to  consider  the  methods 
of  punishment.  "We  must  first  examine  the  nature,  conditions, 
and  limitations  of  responsibility  as  it  has  been  defined. 

3d.  Nature  and  Conditions  of  Responsibility. — The  nature 
of  responsibility  is  stated  generally  in  the  definition  of  it. 
What  we  are  to  remember  and  make  clear  before  entering  into 
its  conditions  is  the  manner  in  which  it  is  to  be  distinguished 
from  freedom  as  the  caj^acity  of  elective  choice.  This  is  simply 
the  capacity  of  voluntary  adjustment  to  environment  and  may 
not  be  more,  though  it  includes  the  power  to  elect  independently 
of  external  influences.  But  responsibility  is  the  capacity  for 
electing  both  freely  and  righteously.  The  former  may  exist 
perfectly  in  non-moral  and  irrational  beings,  taking  the  latter  to 
include  the  insane,  imbecile,  and  certain  classes  of  criminals, 
while  the  latter  can  exist  only  in  moral  agents.  The  constitu- 
tion and  conditions  of  moral  agency  or  responsibility,  therefore, 
^^i.\\  appear  in  the  following  important  data. 

1.  Psychological  Freedom. — This  means  that  the  agent 
must  have  both  spontaneity  and  velleity  ;  that  is,  be  the  cause  of 
his  volitions  and  capable  of  alternative  election.  A  man  who  is 
not  the  cause  of  his  actions  is  certainly  not  one  to  whom  we 
could  impute  them,  though  he  would  not  yet  be  properly  respon- 
sible if  Ave  could  say  nothing  more  than  that  he  is  the  cause  of  them. 
An  illustration  is  found  in  instinctive,  automatic,  and  probably 
certain  forms  of  insane  actions.  The  agent  is  not  regarded  as 
responsible  in  such  cases  because  the  element  of  rationality  is 


230  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

excluded  from  them,  nationality  is  essential  to  responsibility, 
whatever  else  may  be  included.  Again,  a  man  who  cannot  pos- 
sibly elect  a  volition  other  than  a  fixed  one  is  an  automaton,  if 
he  acts  at  all,  and  cannot  be  resj)ousible,  because  responsibility 
implies  elective  capacity  at  least.  Xo  one  disputes  this,  though 
it  may  contain  more.  But  we  certainly  exclude  it  from  actions 
not  involving  that  capacity  for  the  reason  that  we  expect  such 
a  possibility  with  rational  beings.  Deny  it  and  whatever  else 
the  agent  may  possess  he  cannot  be  responsible. 

2.  Physico-political  Freedom,  or  Liberty. — This,  as 
already  defined,  is  exemption  from  restraint,  and  is  a  very  im- 
portant condition  of  responsibility,  because  we  have  pointed  out 
that  psychological  freedom — that  is,  both  spontaneity  and  velleity 
— may  exist  in  spite  of  all  conceivable  restraints.  It  may  not  be 
effective  in  producing  any  result  where  compulsion  may  arrest 
the  physical  movements  of  the  body.  But  the  choice  and  voli- 
tion may  be  executed  without  regard  to  restraints.  Responsi- 
bility, however,  can  exist  only  to  the  extent  to  which  the  sub- 
ject is  exempt  from  restraints  determining  the  conditions  .under 
which  he  must  act.  Hence  it  is  proper  to  say  that  liberty  is  a 
condition  of  responsibility,  but  not  of  spontaneity  nor  of  velleity. 
An  illustration  will  make  this  clear.  The  best  example  will  be 
that  of  the  slave.  "Wc  are  accustomed  to  saying  that  the  slave 
is  not  a  free  agent.  This  is  not  because  he  cannot  disobey  his 
master,  or  cannot  act  in  any  other  way  than  a  fixed  or  pre- 
scribed one,  but  because  his  course  of  action  is  under  restraint, 
is  determined  for  him.  The  master  has  laid  down  the  conditions 
under  which  the  slave  shall  choose  with  impunity.  Hence  free- 
dom in  this  sense  means  choice  with  imj)unity,  or  non-liability 
for  consequences  that  are  voluntarily  accc])ted  ;  it  docs  not  mean 
choice  tibsolutely  considered.  The  slave  is  placed  between  what- 
he  nnist  do  and  what  he  must  accept  as  a  consequence,  not  be- 
tween alternatives  of  his  own  making.  Hence  he  is  not  respon- 
sible for  the  act,  the  necessity  of  which  has  been  fixed  by  his 
superior.  The  law  and  common  sense  have  always  treated  this 
cla.ss  as  exemj)t  from  responsiliility  in  all  obligations  which  are 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUNISHMENT  231 

not  imposed  by  their  own  wills,  and  in  all  actions  which  are  pre- 
scribed under  penalty  by  the  master.  Yet  they  are  free  in  the 
psychological  sense,  as  free  as  any  one  else  could  be  who  is  not 
under  a  master.  It  is  precisely  the  same  with  all  agents  under 
similar  limitations.  The  officers  of  the  law,  for  instance,  are  not 
resi^onsible  for  their  duties  or  for  the  acts  made  necessary  to 
fulfill  those  duties.  The  law  is  an  expression  of  other  wills  than 
their  own,  and  the  officer  after  election  to  his  position,  or  the 
acceptance  of  it,  has  no  responsibility  for  the  acts  prescribed  by 
the  law,  because  he  has  not  himself  determined  the  alternatives 
between  which  he  must  choose.  If  the  law  be  wrong,  and  the 
officer  knows  or  is  capable  of  knowing  that  it  is  wa-ong,  he  may 
then  be  indirectly  responsible,  where  other  considerations  do  not 
interfere,  for  accepting  a  position  which  involves  a  wrong 
that  he  can  prevent.  But  if  no  act  or  choice  of  his  can  prevent 
the  fulfillment  of  the  law,  and  if  he  be  liable  to  punishment  for 
not  fulfilling  it,  he  has  no  responsibility  in  the  case.  This  rests 
upon  the  law-makers.  But  it  is  not.  necessary  to  follow  a  mat- 
ter of  this  kind  into  all  its  details.  The  main  point  to  be  illus- 
trated is  that  a  man's  responsibility  for  an  act  depends  upon  the 
alternatives  between  which  he  is  placed  quite  as  much  as  it 
depends  upon  his  capacity  of  electing  between  them.  This  is 
Avhy  there  must  be  at  least  a  certain  measure  of  liljerty  or  ex- 
emj)tion  from  restraint,  as  well  as  freedom  or  velleity,  in  order 
to  secure  responsibility,  and  it  does  not  matter  from  what  source 
the  restraint  or  limitation  comes,  provided  only  that  it  is  a 
superior  power  which  subjects  the  agent  to  limitations  that  afiect 
his  personal  welfare,  perfection,  rights,  or  other  immunities. 
The  nature  and  extent  of  those  limitations  will  be  considei-ed 
presently.  For  the  moment  it  is  enough  to  know  that  external 
influences  or  a  restriction  of  liberty  that  does  not  aflfect  the  ab- 
stract capacity  of  elective  choice  may  interfere  with  responsibility, 
and  that,  other  things  being  equal,  with  the  possibility  of  volun- 
tary adjustment  to  environment,  this  responsibility  will  coincide 
with  the  liberty  here  indicated,  or  appear  to  be  identical  with  it. 
It  is  this  which  has  given  rise  to  the  confusion  between  freedom 


232  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

psychologically  considered  and  responsibility,  and  consequently 
the  denial  of  freedom,  the  moment  that  responsibility  was  found  to 
be  limited  by  external  influences.  It  grew  out  of  an  ordinary 
illusion  of  identity  in  regard  to  two  things  denoted  by  the  same 
term,  and  then  a  fallacy  of  equivocation  in  the  argument  which 
the  controversy  about  free  will  involved. 

One  thing  to  be  remarked  under  this  topic  is  the  relation  of 
responsibility  to  the  subject's  rights  and  duties,  a  relation  which 
is  not  involved  in  free  will,  though  conditioned  by  it.  We 
assume  that  a  man  has  the  right  of  self-preservation,  of  self-real- 
ization and  culture  within  certain  limits,  and  that  he  has  certain 
duties  resting  upon  him.  These  duties,  and  therefore  the  subject's 
responsibilities,  are  dependent,  not  only  upon  the  possibility  of 
his  electing  for  them,  but  also  upon  the  joossibility  of  performing 
them  wheii  he  does  elect ;  that  is,  upon  his  "  freedom  "  from  an 
alternative  which  conditions  his  welfare  in  another  more  impor- 
tant aspect.  Thus  I  may  say  that  it  is  a  man's  duty  to  exercise 
the  right  of  the  elective  franchise,  and  he  is  responsible  for  not 
so  doing.  But  this  is  wholly  dependent  upon  its  relation  to  the 
risks  of  health,  life,  or  j^ropcrty  involved,  even  though  he  have 
the  power  to  perform  in  the  case.  And  so  witli  a  man's  rights. 
If  external  influences  impose  an  alternative  that  conflicts  mth 
the  suliject's  rights,  though  free  to  choose  or  reject  this  alter- 
native, he  is  not  responsible  for  it,  because  he  is  not  responsible 
for  or  has  not  determined  the  conditions  under  which  he  must 
choose  in  the  case.  This  is  the  most  important  condition  of  the 
responsibility,  while  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  capacity  of 
elective  choice.  It  is  not  a  condition  existing  in  any  absolute 
degree,  but  is  subject  to  indefinable  limitations.  It  is  only  to  say 
that  responsil)ility  will  exist  in  the  2in)portion  in  which  man  has 
the  opportunity  to  determine  the  alternatives  from  which  he 
shall  choose.  If  they  are  determined  for  him  he  requires  nothing 
more  than  freedom  fur  adjustment  and  survival.  But  if  he  can 
determine  them  himself,  if  lie  can  propose  a  moral  ideal  whose 
realization  is  not  cxcludod  by  the  necessity  of  consulting  lower 
ends  for  survival,  and  if  his  own  personality  is  not  at  stake  in 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUNISHMENT  233 

the  case,  while  his  freedom,  psychologically  considered,  is  not 
affected  one  way  or  the  other,  his  responsibility  is  so  atfected, 
because  it  depends  more  on  the  power  to  act  independently  than 
in  spite  of  environment.  Or,  to  put  the  same  thought  in  a  way 
that  shows  how  freedom  and  responsibility  have  been  confused, 
we  can  say  that  freedom  of  will  depends  on  capacity  for  elective 
choice,  and  responsibility  upon  the  opportunity  of  action  without 
objective  limitations. 

3.  CoxsciEXCE  OR  Moral  Capacity. — Responsibility  is  a 
characteristic  that  is  not  attributed  either  to  the  animals  or  to 
irrational  men,  such  as  the  insane,  the  imbecile,  and  certain 
classes  of  criminals.  The  main  reason  for  the  fact  is  that  moral 
reason  is  excluded  from  these  classes.  The  principal  distinctive 
feature  of  man,  compared  with  animal  life,  is  the  fact  that  he 
has  a  well-developed  moral  nature,  and  it  is  often  supposed  that 
there  is  no  connecting  link  between  the  two  classes  because  of 
this  fact.  AVe  shall  not  go  so  far  as  to  determine  this  question, 
as  it  has  no  bearing  upon  the  theory  of  responsibility,  but  only 
upon  its  application.  The  present  purpose  is  gained  if  we  can 
insist  upon  the  enormous  distance  between  the  typical  species  of 
both  classes  of  existence,  and  note  that  it  is  marked  by  the  pres- 
ence in  man  of  what  goes  by  the  name  of  a  moral  nature.  This  is 
the  chief  factor  of  responsibility  because  it  is  determined  by  the 
matter  of  praise  and  blame,  or  merit  and  demerit.  It  involves 
all  that  is  still  to  be  examined  more  carefully  in  the  study  of 
conscience,  but  which  may  here  be  summed  up  in  intelligence, 
moral  feeling,  and  the  sense  of  duty.  Conscience  is  simply  the 
mind  acting  as  a  determinant  of  the  ideal,  of  the  choice  de- 
manded for  its  realization,  and  the  monitor  of  the  will  in  its  voli- 
tions. ]\Ian  is  responsible  in  proportion  as  it  is  present  and 
active  in  his  life.  To  show  this  we  have  only  to  see  how  we  ad- 
judge the  conduct  of  children,  of  savages,  of  the  illiterate,  of  the 
passionate,  of  the  defective  classes,  in  all  of  which  the  moral 
faculties  either  do  not  exist  or  are  less  developed  and  active  in 
their  lives.  We  do  not  think  them  less  free  than  mature  and  well- 
developed  species  of  the  race,  because  their  power  of  choice  is  the 


234  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

same  as  those ;  but  their  responsibility  differs  because  it  is  so 
much  more  dependent  upon  the  power  to  determine  the  values 
of  alternatives  than  upon  the  power  to  elect  from  them. 
Conscience  is  the  jiower  which  effects  this  estimation,  and  until  it 
does  this,  and  imposes  an  obligation,  true  moral  responsibility- 
does  not  exist.  The  term  can  only  be  used  metaphoricallv  to 
describe  any  other  action,  no  matter  how^  free  it  may  be.  Re- 
sponsibility is  thus  conditioned  much  more  by  the  range  of 
hioidedge,  as  apj^lied  to  moral  distinctions,  than  upon  merely 
conative  capacity  or  elective  choice.  Freedom  requires  knowl- 
edge, consciousness ;  but  it  requires  only  to  know  what  the  par- 
ticular alternatives  are  from  which  the  choice  is  made,  while 
responsibility  requires,  in  addition,  to  know  the  moral  quality  of 
the  alternatives.  It  is  thus  the  hind  of  knowledge  which  effects 
responsibility,  and  we  may  contrast  it  with  freedom  by  saying 
that  the  primary  element  of  freedom  is  power  to  do,  while  that  of 
responsibility  is  morality.  This  is  clearly  illustrated  by  the 
large  class  of  persons  who  are  exempt  from  praise  or  blame  on 
the  ground  that  they  do  not  know  the  character  of  their  conduct, 
and  who,  from  the  existence  of  moral  and  intellectual  defects, 
cannot  be  expected  to  know  it.  Even  animals  may  have  power 
to  elect,  but  not  to  distinguish  right  and  wrong. 

Still  another  way  exists  to  show  the  distinction  between  free- 
dom and  responsibility.  We  do  not  attacli  praise  or  blame  to 
actions  unless  the  agent  is  capable  of  knowing  their  character. 
He  may  know  what  the  alternatives  of  choice  are,  and  have  the 
power  of  choice,  but  unless  he  knows  or  can  be  made  to  know 
that  one  of  them  is  morally  preferable  to  another  we  do  not 
praise  or  l)lamc  him  for  them.  Praise  and  blame  attach  only  to 
moral  agents,  and  not  to  those  who  arc  nothing  more  than  free 
agents.  The  former  quality  involves  the  existence  of  conscience, 
and  the  latter  docs  not,  though  it  is  a  condition  and  element  of 
the  effectiveness  of  conscience  when  it  docs  exist. 

It  is  also  important  to  remark  that  responsil)ility  exists  in  dif- 
ferent degrees,  according  to  the  degree  of  development  possessed 
by  conscience.     It  is  not  an  absolute  quality  existing  in  the 


HESPOKSIBILITY  AND  PUNISHMENT  235 

same  degree  in  all  persons  or  not  at  all.  It  lias  all  varieties  of 
degrees  according,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  influence  of  environ- 
ment, and  on  the  other,  to  the  extent  of  moral  development.  But 
throwing  aside  the  influence  of  external  agencies,  the  modifying 
influence  of  development  is  shown  in  two  different  ways.  First, 
responsibility  is  absolutely  conditioned  by  the  capacity' fov  know- 
ing' that  there  is  a  right  and  wrong,  and  second,  its  degrees  are 
conditioned  by  the  extent  of  actual  knowledge  regarding  the 
nature  of  particular  actions.  There  can  be  no  responsibility 
whatever  unless  the  agent  can  appreciate  or  be  taught  to  appre- 
ciate what  is  meant  by  right  and  wrong,  but  it  is  not  completed 
by  this  merely  general  distinction.  .  The  extent  of  it  depends 
upon  the  agent's  knowledge  of  the  particular  acts  that  are  con- 
nected with  the  distinction.  Hence  there  are  two  different  forms 
of  responsibility  which  determine  degrees  of  punishment  to  be 
examined  presently.  .  The  first  requires  that  the  agent  have 
the  capacity  for  estimating  moral  values,  and  the  second  that  he 
know  what  actions  agree  or  disagree  with  them.  In  other  words, 
the  first  and  absolute  condition  of  responsibility  is  the  capacity 
to  know  a  moral  end,  and  the  second  is  actual  knowledge  of  the 
means  to  it.  Thus  I  require  in  a  child  that  it  be  able  to  know 
that  cruelty  is  w^rong,  that  it  is  a  bad  end  to  pursue,  before  I 
can  think  of  holding  it  responsible  for  such  an  act.  On  the 
other  hand,  even  if  it  knows  that  cruelty  is  condemnable  it  is 
not  responsible  for  that  result  if  it  does  not  know^  that  given 
actions  terminate  in  it.  This  is  the  distinction  between  the 
intention  as  applied  to  ends  and  intention  as  applied  to  acts. 
It  everywhere  holds  good,  and  is  reckoned  with  both  in  courts  of 
law  and  the  judgments  of  practical  life.  Exemption  can  be  pur- 
chased only  by  proving  ignorance  either  of  moral  distinctions  or 
of  the  character  of  the  acts  involving  them.  To  summarize  the 
conditions  of  the  two  different  degrees  of  responsibility,  the  first 
depends  upon  the  capacity  for  moral  knowledge  and  the  second 
upon  the  extent  of  it. 

4.  Rational  Equilibrium  and  Supremacy. — By  this  con- 
dition of  responsibility  I  mean  subjective  control  corresponding 


236  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

to  objective  freedom  or  liberty.  The  less  perfectly  developed 
species  of  men  undoubtedly  are  iufluenced  by  passion,  instinct,  or 
hereditary  evil  inclinations  to  an  extent  that  may  well  handicap 
them  in  a  struggle  requiring  a  strong  moral  nature  to  survive 
in  it.  They  may  be  able  to  choose,  to  resist  these  forces,  and 
actually  may  elect  for  the  wrong,  conscious  that  the  opposite 
course  is  the  one  enjoined  by  the  social  organism.  But  the 
better  elements  of  reason  and  moral  inclination  may  be  kept 
down  so  that  neither  prudence  nor  conscience  operate  effectively, 
and  in  all  such  cases  humane  minds  act  indulgently  in  the 
distribution  of  praise  and  blame  or  responsibility.  "Where  the 
organic  nature  of  the  subject,  whether  physical  or  mental,  keeps 
up  before  consciousness  a  ci'aving  desire  for  some  object  without 
interference  of  the  subject's  will,  there  is  a  force  that  may  pro- 
duce an  act  that  we  regard  as  wrong  and  yet  we  shall  have  to 
limit  the  agent's  responsibility,  mainly  because  the  act  may  not 
be  a  deliberate  choice  or  volition  at  all,  but  a  mere  automatism,  or 
it  may  be  a  mixture  of  both.  Organic  cravings  for  which  the 
agent  is  not  responsible,  with  their  predisposition  to  check  de- 
liberation, do  much  to  determine  the  alternatives  between  which 
the  agent  has  to  choose  before  he  has  time  to  reflect  on  their 
character,  and  though  he  is  perfectly  free  he  will  be  responsible 
only  to  the  extent  in  which  reason  and  conscience  enter  into  the 
determination  of  the  choice.  If  impulse,  passion,  instinct,  and 
hereditary  inclinations  act  dynamically  alone,  there  will  be  no 
responsibility  and  also  no  freedom  but  that  of  spontaneity.  But 
if  they  are  accompanied  by  consciousness,  they  will  be  free 
in  proi:)ortion  to  its  influence  on  the  result,  aud  responsible 
in  proportion  to  the  activity  of  conscience  and  its  power  to  eflcct 
an  equilibrium  against  natural  appetites.  It  is  here  again  that 
freedom  and  responsibility  have  been  confused,  and  the  former 
conceived  as  iitdifference  to  motive><.  Now,  responsibility  does 
require  something  like  iudiflercnco,  balance,  or  equilibrium. 
But  it  i.s  not  indiflerence  to  motives,  but  to  organic  tendencies, 
which  act  as  restraints  upon  deliberation  nnich  as  objective 
restraints  limit  the  o])portunities  of  free  choice,  a.s  it  is  called. 


RESrOXSIBILITY  ASD  rUXISIi:\IEXT  237 

There  can  be  no  indiflerence  to  motives  in  the  last  analysis, 
for  reason  must  have  its  own  motives ;  nor  must  the  indiflerence 
be  freedom  from  inclination  and  emotional  desire  altogether.  It 
must  be  exemption  from  their  impulsive,  reflex,  or  automatic 
effect  upon  action.  The  equilibrium  here  considered,  therefore, 
is  not  a  motiveless  consciousness,  but  a  deliberative  consciousness, 
which  can  make  the  subject's  own  feelings  and  natural  desires  an 
object  of  restraint  and  control  ivithout  a  resort  to  limitations  of 
objective  freedom  or  liberty.  This  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  moral  perception  is  more  or  less  a  condition  of  responsi- 
bility, but  not  of  freedom  as  capacity  for  elective  choice.  The 
inhibition  of  all  the  reflex,  impulsive,  and  automatic  forces  of  the 
system,  whether  physical  or  mental,  is  necessaiy  to  give  deliber- 
ative reason  control  of  the  field,  and  the  balance,  indifference,  or 
equilibrium  of  which  we  speak,  is  only  the  subject's  exemption 
from  the  play  of  mechanical  and  organic  impulses  which  would 
prevent  his  actions  from  being  strict  volitions,  and  more  par- 
ticularly from  being  volitions  with  an  accompaniment  of  moral 
consciousness.  Action  under  the  motivation  of  reason  will 
condition  freedom ;  under  the  motivation  of  moral  reason  or 
conscience  it  will  determine  responsibility. 

4th.  Limitations  of  Responsibility. — After  what  has  been  said 
of  the  conditions  of  responsibility  its  limitations  require  to 
be  little  more  than  enumerated.  They  are  respectively  the 
opposite  of  its  conditions  and  may  be  dismissed  briefly  as 
follows : 

1.  The  Influence  of  Environment. — This  limitation  is  not 
due  to  the  mere  i^reseuce  of  external  agencies,  but  their  power 
to  render  impossible  the  realization  of  an}'thing  but  self-pres- 
ervation. Thus,  where  economic  conditions  involve  the  expen- 
diture of  the  subject's  whole  time  and  energies  in  bare  self-support 
he  is  not  responsible  for  the  failure  to  realize  any  higher  good. 
He  will  be  responsible  only  to  the  extent  to  which  he  Ls  not  com- 
pelled to  act  in  self-defense,  assuming  that  he  has  the  right  to  it, 
and  to  which  he  can  determine  as  well  as  choose  his  end  for  him- 
self. 


238  ELE3IENTS  OF  ETHICS 

2.  Inherited  Impulses. — It  is  not  heredity  per  se  that 
limits  responsibility,  because  even  this  might  be  inherited.  But 
it  is  the  inheritance  of  organic  tendencies  which  reflect  a  defec- 
tive conscience,  or  which  more  or  less  predetermine  the  alterna- 
tives from  which  the  subject  is  to  choose.  We  make  a  man 
responsible  for  his  habits  because  we  assume  that  he  originates 
them  and  that  he  is  aware  of  their  character.  But  he  is  not 
responsible  for — that  is,  neither  originated  nor  knew  the  nature 
of — the  cravings  which  offer  his  will  an  object  of  volition.  To  the 
extent,  therefore,  to  which  moral  balance  or  the  sovereignty  of 
reason  and  conscience  are  subordinated  to  irrational  instincts, 
the  agent  will  be  limited  in  his  responsibility,  though  not  in  his 
capacity  of  choice,  under  the  necessity  of  adjustment. 

8.  Defective  Knowledge. — Ignorance,  if  it  can  be  proved, 
is  alwa3's  a  legitimate  plea  of  defense  against  responsibility. 
The  agent  may  know  what  is  right  and  wrong  in  the  abstract, 
the  ultimate  end  whi(!h  he  ought  to  seek  and  that  which  he 
should  avoid ;  but  he  may  not  be  sufficiently  conscious,  owing  to 
no  fault  of  his  own,  of  the  particular  conduct  which  is  causally 
connected  with  that  end,  and  hence  not  being  involved  in  his 
intentions,  the  connection  cannot  be  a  basis  of  responsibility  in 
the  case. 

4.  Defective  Moral  Capacity. — A  man  may  have  a 
good  intellect  and  a  wide  knowledge  of  facts  and  of  the  relation 
between  means  and  ends,  but  if  he  lacks  the  capacity  to  estimate 
or  feel  the  value  and  imperativeness  of  moral  ends,  if  he  lacks 
that  conjunction  of  social,  intellectual,  and  moral  instincts,  so 
called,  which  determine  the  value  of  certain  ends  to  be  realized, 
he  cannot  be  regarded  as  completely  responsible.  His  conduct 
can  only  be  prudential,  not  moral,  and  his  responsibility  will 
extend  only  so  far  as  his  moral  nature  is  developed. 

The  only  criticism  likely  against  all  this  will  be  the  charge  of 
the  necessitarian,  that  we  practically  admit  his  whole  argument 
by  granting  these  important  limitations  to  responsibility.  This, 
as  we  have  already  admitted,  appears  very  fair.  But  it  wholly 
mistakes  the  issue,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  do  not  suppose 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUNISHMENT  239 

the  limitations  as  universal  as  the  necessitarian  does  the  absence 
of  freedom.  AYe  have  merely  shown  the  conditions  under  which 
responsibility  must  be  limited  or  absent,  and  probably  the  pro- 
portion of  mankind  wholly  without  it  is  very  small,  while  if 
we  admit  that  it  may  exist,  as  we  think  it  does,  in  indefinite 
degrees,  there  is  room  for  selecting  typical  instances  for  illustrat- 
ing and  justifying  moral  and  social  policy  in  its  manner  of  deal- 
ing with  men.  But  the  issue  which  the  necessitarian  mistakes 
is,  whether  man  can  choose  between  two  alternatives  of  which  he 
is  conscious,  while  the  arguments  which  he  produces  against  this 
possibility  are  drawn  almost  wholly  from  questions  of  morality 
and  responsibility,  which  are  much  more  limited  than  freedom. 
Freedom,  as  here  defined,  is  as  universal  as  consciousness,  at 
least  the  deliberative  consciousness,  Avhich  is  not  limited  even  to 
man ;  but  responsibility  can  be  found  only  where  we  find  moral 
capacity.  Hence,  though  we  admit  limitations  to  this,  we  rely 
upon  a  more  universal  freedom  as  the  very  condition  of  moraliz- 
ing man  by  education  and  discipline,  while  the  necessitarian  in 
denying  freedom,  Mhich  he  himself  defines  as  capacity  for  elec- 
tive choice,  cuts  off"  every  possil)ility  of  this  result  and  with  it 
the  basis  of  every  institution  aiming  to  accomplish  it.  This  is 
apparent  in  the  system  of  Mr.  Spencer.  On  the  one  hand,  he 
says  that  the  primary  influences  which  have  given  rise  to  moral 
consciousness  have  been  religious,  political,  and  social  restraints, 
and  on  the  other,  he  denies  the  freedom  of  the  will.  But  if  man 
is  not  free  and  cannot  choose  any  other  course  than  that  pre- 
scribed by  his  character,  then  his  character  is  either  not  that  of 
a  free  agent  or  he  cannot  modify  it  by  any  submission  to  restraint. 
Political,  social,  and  religious  restraints  can  do  nothing  with  a 
man  who  cannot  freely  and  voluntarily  adjust  himself  to  them. 
It  is  precisely  because  he  is  free  that  we  impose  restraints  and 
inflict  punishment  upon  man  in  order  to  moralize  him.  Other- 
wise we  could  not  expect  to  modify  him  or  his  conduct.  Hence 
as  a  condition  of  developing  moral  capacity,  or  at  least  moral 
habits  in  the  agent,  we  must  have  freedom  or  velleity,  which  is 
a  more  universal  quality  of  intelligence  than  moral  conscious- 


240  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

ness,  and  with  the  dawu  and  growth  of  moral  consciousness  will 
come  responsibility  in  its  appropriate  degree. 

III.  PVXISHMEXT. — Punishment,  again,  is  a  term  used  in 
more  than  one  sense,  and,  like  freedom  and  responsibility,  re- 
quires to  be  analyzed.  This  will  be  done  by  considering  its 
definition  and  divisions. 

1st.  Definition  of  Punishment. — Punishment,  strictly  speak- 
ing, is  the  infliction  of  pain  for  icrong  doing.  This,  however,  does 
not  fully  state  its  object,  while  modern  writei-s  wish  to  distinguish 
its  proper  object  from  that  which  is  too  often  connected  with  the 
infliction  of  pain,  namely,  vindictiveness.  Etymologically  the 
term  denotes  the  infliction  of  pain,  and  remotely  is  taken  from 
a  root  which  implies  that  the  object  of  it  was  to  produce  peni- 
tence for  wrongdoing.  It  is  synonymous  with  penalty  or  con- 
sequences imposed  upon  action  to  prevent  its  recurrence.  At 
first  this  penalty  or  punishment  was  inflicted  with  the  j)urpose 
of  avenging  the  wronged  party.  It  Avas  done  by  the  process  of 
requital  in  kind  (eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth),  but  in  course  of 
time  an  equivalent  was  demanded  and  received  as  a  substitute, 
and  quit  money  was  accepted  as  adequate  compensation  for  in- 
jury in  most  cases.  The  term  punishment  took  on  the  new 
meaning  and  retains  it  still,  though  it  has  not  lost  the  significa- 
tion of  the  infliction  of  pain  for  the  sake  of  satisfying  vindictive- 
ness or  moral  indignation.  But  it  is  precisely  this  mental 
attitude  which  a  high  civilization  wishes  to  eliminate  from  its 
methods  of  punishment,  and  hence,  though  it  retains  the  inflic- 
tion of  pain  in  its  policy,  it  does  not  inflict  it  for  pain's  sake,  but 
only  as  a  means  to  the  moralization  of  the  individual,  wlun  the 
penalty  can  Ije  removed.  Thus  pain  is  not  the  object  but  an 
incident  of  its  existence.  Hence  in  its  broadest  sense  to  denote 
what  modern  practice  and  conceptions  would  have  it  mean, 
punishment  in  the  impo4tion  of  reatraintif  with  the  infliction  of 
pain  became  of  xnrongdoing  and  for  the  puipose  of  prcventioti 
and  correction;  rarely,  if  ever,  for  retribidion.  This  is  a  very 
complex  conception  and  coiii])rehends  several  olyects  which  are 
distinct  from  each  other  and  depend  upon  diflereut  conditions. 


RESPONSIBILITY  AXD  PUNISHMENT  241 

But  it  is  noticeable  that  it  aims  to  eliminate  the  original,  conception 
and  object  of  punishment.  We  may,  therefore,  take  up  the  kinds 
and  conditions  of  punishment  as  comprehensively  understood. 

A  fundamental  feature  in  determining  the  conception  of 
punishment  is  the  fact  that  no  one  applies  the  term  to  processes 
attempting  to  affect  the  conduct  of  animals  or  of  imbeciles  and 
the  insane.  Punishment  denotes  a  method  of  treating  free  and 
responsible  agents.  We  may  inflict  pain  upon  animals  and  men 
whom  we  do  not  regard  as  rational,  but  we  never  mistake  this 
for  punishment.  We  inflict  it  either  out  of  malice  or  for  the 
purpose  of  preventing  certain  irregularities  of  conduct  detri- 
mental to  human  welfare.  Often  the  pain  is  nothing  but  a 
necessary  incident  of  our  object.  Biit  punishment  in  no  case 
expresses  either  the  nature  or  the  object  of  the  process.  It 
can  properly  apply  only  to  moral  beings  and  is  an  incident  of 
responsibility. 

2d.  Kinds  and  Objects  of  Punishment. — What  are  called 
the  kinds  and  objects  of  j^unishment  are  expressed  in  the  same 
terms.  They  cover  every  means  employed  by  man  in  his  social 
capacity,  or  in  the  capacity  of  exercising  legitimate  authority, 
to  regulate  human  conduct  and  to  protect  the  order  which  he  , 
endeavors  to  establish.  But  they  can  all  be  resolved  into  three 
forms. 

1.  Prevextiox,  or  Prevextive  Restraints. — Prevention, 
strictly  speaking,  is  not  a  form  but  an  object  of  punishment. 
This  was  practically  made  clear  by  the  fact  that  punishment  can 
strictly  apply  only  to  free  and  responsible  beings,  freedom  here 
expressing  the  capacity  of  alternative  choice.  But  a  policy  of 
preventing  wrongdoing  can  apply  to  beings  who  are  without 
these  qualities  and  yet  be  an  object  of  the  treatment  applied  to 
those  who  have  them.  This  matter  aside,  however,  what  we 
wish  chiefly  to  remark  is  the  condition  of  applying  even  preven- 
tive restraint.  It  is  the  fact  that  even  prevention  cannot  be 
applied  to  the  conduct  of  beings  who  are  not  the  cause  of  their 
own  volitions.  Necessitarianism  of  the  objective  sort,  which 
magnifies  the  determining  influence  of  environment,  cannot  even 


242  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

apply  or  justify  the  application  of  preventive  luetLods  to  agents 
who  do  not  originate  their  own  acts.  Prevention  must,  to  be 
rational,  always  apply  to  causes  and  not  to  effects.  If  man's 
conduct  be  bad,  we  can  prevent  its  recurrence  only  by  removing 
its  cause,  and  if  man  does  not  cause  it,  he  cannot  be  the  subject 
of  preventive  restraint.  The  only  thing  amenable  to  such  a  sys- 
tem is  the  cause  of  the  act,  and  hence  man  must  at  least  have 
the  freedom  of  spontaneity  before  we  can  morally  justify  any 
method  of  imposing  restraints  or  inflicting  pain  upon  him.  But 
preventive  methods  do  not  go  beyond  this.  They  do  not  stop 
to  consider  whether  the  agent  is  free  and  responsible  in  the 
higher  sense.  They  only  consider  his  value  in  the  social  and  moral 
economy,  and  subordinate  his  existence,  rights,  and  liberties  to 
that  economy.  Thus  if  an  insane  man  commit  a  murder,  we  do 
not  punish  him.  We  confine  him  under  restraint  to  prevent 
similar  deeds  in  the  future  on  his  part.  ^Ve  do  not  attempt 
either  to  reform  him  or  to  make  his  restraint  an  example  to 
others,  for  the  reason  that  he  is  not  responsible.  We  may 
attempt  to  cure  him  of  his  disease,  but  not  to  correct  his  will.  It 
is  the  same  with  animals  and  all  agents  that  may  be  considered 
.simply  as  the  causes  of  their  actions,  and  nothing  more.  We  re- 
strict their  liberties;  that  is,  confine  them,  and  aim  to  do  nothing 
but  prevent  the  evils  they  are  capable  of  producing.  But  we  do 
so  only  upon  the  supposition  that  objective  necessitarianism 
is  false,  and  that  the  agents  are  free  to  the  extent  of  .sponta- 
neity ;  that  is,  of  being  the  causes  of  their  own  actions.  This 
is  one  practical  count  against  the  unqualified  adoption  of  necessi- 
tarianism. 

2.  Correction,  or  Corrective  Discipline. — Correction, 
like  prevention,  expresses  an  object  rather  than  a  form  of  punish- 
ment. It  involves  the  inflicticm  of  pain  or  the  imjiosition  of 
restraint  for  the  purpose  of  modifying  the  subject's  character  and 
liis  restoration  to  liberty.  This  is  not  the  object  of  prevention, 
whicli  cannot  chauL'e  character,  or  at  least  never  expects  to  do 
so,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  iK^t  founded  upon  that  possibility.  It 
is   perfectly  compatible   with  subjective  necessitarianism.     But 


BESPOXSIBILITY  AXD  PUXISiniEXT  243 

not  so  with  corrective  discipline.     This  is  a  method  which  cannot 
be  applied  to  agents  Avho  are  nothing  more  than  the  causes  of 
their  actions.     It  assumes  that  character  is  not  a  fixed  and  unal- 
terable quality,  but  that  it  is  modifiable  by  voluntary  adjustment 
to  circumstances ;  that  is  to  say,  it  assumes  that  a  man  can  act 
otherwise  than  he  does,  or  that  he  can  choose  between  alter- 
natives which,  as  we  have  seen,  would  be  impossible  under  neces- 
sitarianism.    Correction,  therefore,  assumes  that  a  man  is  a  free 
agent,   that  this  freedom  goes  beyond  spontaneity  and  includes 
velleity.     Otherwise  the  whole  system  is  absurd.     A  man  who 
cannot  modify  his  conduct  under  discipline,  and  hence  who  is 
not  free,  is  not  a  subject  for  any  kind  of  punishment :  he  is  fit 
only  for  a  madhouse.     He  must  have  the  capacity  of  voluntary 
choice,  elective  volition,  before  he  is  amenable  to  reproof  or  cor- 
rection, for  the  simple  reason  that  a  fixed  character  is  not  capa- 
ble of  change.     If  the  agent  be  insane  he  may  be  cured,  but  not 
corrected   or   reformed.     Correction  depends  wholly   upon   the 
capacity  of  free  adjustment  to  circumstances.     It  is  no  answer  to 
say  that  his  environment,  external  influences,  modifies  his  con- 
duct, because,  if  this  determines  it,  we  have  seen  that  the  subject  is 
not  the  cause  of  his  own  actions  and  is  not  even  amenable  to  pre- 
ventive methods.     A  being  who  can  consciously  adjust  himself  to 
environment  is  not  the  subject  of  a  blind  instinct  that  goes  on  in 
its  momentum  and  shows  no  adjustment  to  change,  but  has  the 
capacity  of  elective  choice  as  the  one  condition  of  correction. 
It  is  fatal  to  the  method  to  suppose  that  the  modification  of  hab- 
its, which  every  one  admits  to  be  a  fxict  in  many,  perhaps  the 
majority  of  cases,  is  merely  a  passive  response  to  external  influ- 
ence, because,  if  it  were  so,  the  old  character  would  return  to  the 
control  as  soon  as  restraint  was  removed.     If  not  permanently 
modified  by  corrective  punishment,  the  subject  would  have  to  be 
permanently  confined.     But  the  fact  that  his  character  becomes 
modified   in   many    cases   sufficiently   to    restore   his   liberty  is 
proof  that  it  is  not  unalterable  by  himself,  that  the  agent's  will 
and  free  choice  count  for  much  in  the  result ;  nay,  are  the  pri- 
mary condition  of  it. 


244  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

The  effect  of  all  this  is  to  propose  a  dilemma  for  the  necessita- 
rian. He  must  abandon  either  his  theory  of  the  "will  or  his 
theory  of  punishment.  It  is  the  necessitarian  who  has  always 
advocated  most  strenuously  the  restriction  of  punishment  to  the 
purposes  of  prevention  and  correctioii.  If  he  confined  himself 
to  prevention  there  would  be  no  quarrel  with  him.  But  when 
he  admits  that  punishment  is  designed  to  correct  and  reform  the 
will,  and  that  it  actually  avails  to  produce  this  effect,  he  aban- 
dons the  fundamental  assumption  of  his  theory  of  volition,  which 
must  hold  that  character  is  an  unalterable  datum.  Otherwise 
there  is  absolutely  no  difference  between  freedomism  and  neces- 
sitarianism. But  as  long  as  he  insists  upon  the  antithesis  be- 
tween these  two  theories  of  volition  he  must  either  abandon  his 
O'.vn  doctrine  of  it  and  accept  the  fact  of  freedom  or  confine  his 
theory  of  punishment  to  prevention.  He  cannot  hold  to  both  of 
them  at  the  same  time. 

The  relation  of  corrective  punishment  to  responsibility  is  a 
complicated  one.  While  moral  resj^onsibility  is  not  necessary 
in  any  degree  to  the  modification  of  habits,  the  ap2)lication  of 
this  method  to  man  invariably  assumes  a  measure  of  it  and  aims 
to  increase  it.  So  far  as  mere  change  of  habits  is  concerned 
this  can  be  effected  more  or  less  wherever  there  is  free  choice, 
and  is  not  limited  to  the  human  race.  But  among  animals  the 
effects  of  discipline  are  soon  obliterated,  if  the  individual's  nat- 
ural condition  is  restored,  and  since  the  value  of  animals  is  not 
measured  in  moral  terms,  whatever  discipline  is  applied  to  them 
is  designed  to  mold  habits  in  accordance  with  economic  consid- 
erations. It  is  only  in  man  and  among  those  of  the  race  of 
whom  no  suspicion  of  insanity,  intellectual  and  moral,  can  be 
entertained,  that  discipline  is  api)lied  for  the  i)urpose  of  improv- 
ing personal  character  and  pr('i)aring  him  for  the  right  enjoy- 
ment of  social  rights  and  civil  liberties.  Hence  it  assumes  a 
measure  of  responsibility,  if  only  of  the  slightest  degree.  If  the 
num  who  does  a  wrong  t(j  society  can  draw  the  distinction  be- 
tween right  and  wrong  at  all,  lie  is  liable  to  corrective  discipline 
either  as  a  mode  of  instructing  him  regarding  his  specific  duties, 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUNISHMENT  245 

or  as  a  lesson  in  the  formation  of  better  habits.  But  he  is  re- 
sponsible to  the  extent  of  his  knowledge  in  the  case.  Not  that 
ifrnorance  of  the  law  will  excuse  him  before  the  courts,  unless  it 
can  l)e  proved,  but  that  he  is  required  to  prove  this  ignorance 
and  freedom  from  bad  intentions.  This  limitation  aside,  how- 
ever, it  is  a  fact  that  defective  knowledge  and  defective  moral 
capacity  will  exempt  a  man  from  full  responsibility  for  his  ac- 
tions, so  that  the  measure  of  his  punishment  is  graduated  to  this 
fact  as  well  as  to  the  amount  of  injury  inflicted,  while  it  is 
made  solely  corrective  in  its  object,  the  design  being  to  develop 
conscience  from  a  passive  to  an  active,  from  a  static  to  a  dynamic, 
function  in  the  economy  of  the  individual's  life.  Corrective 
punishment  respects  personality  and  aims  to  fit  the  individual 
for  his  liberty,  and  not  merely  to  get  satisfaction  out  of  the  in- 
fliction of  pain.  It  assumes  that  conscience  and  respect  for 
duty  are  either  not  dominant  among  the  motives  of  the  subject, 
or  are  defective  in  their  development,  and  hence  it  endeavors  to 
give  them  the  place  which  deliberation  upon  unpleasant  conse- 
quences for  disregarding  them  is  expected  to  produce.  It  makes 
allowance  for  all  the  limitations  of  responsibility  which  we  have 
enumerated  and  tempers  the  severity  of  the  punishment  accord- 
ingly. It  assumes  a  certain  degree  of  it  and  the  capacity  under 
pressure  to  adjust  oneself  to  environment  and  to  form  habits  in 
which  conscience  and  respect  for  public  welfare  shall  predomi- 
nate. It  aims  also  to  increase  that  responsibility  by  making  the 
reasons  for  its  limitation  less  cogent  and  by  increasing  the  re- 
spect for  law,  which  is  a  function  of  conscience. 

It  is  important  to  remark  a  confirmation  of  this  position  in  the 
recent  doctrine  that  imprisonment  for  crime  should  be  for  an  in- 
definite period,  its  expiration  to  be  determined  by  the  degree  of  de- 
velopment in  character  and  self-control.  This  view  abandons  the 
notion  of  compensation  for  wrongdoing  altogether  and  conditions 
restraint  and  discipline  wholly  upon  the  degree  of  responsibility 
possessed  by  the  subject,  lie  being  confined  until  he  can  volunta- 
rily modify  his  will  and  habits,  when  he  may  be  allowed  to  have 
bis  liberty  again.    It  has  a  purely  iiumauitarian  object,  the  very 


246  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

opposite  of  the  system  founded  upon  the  exaction  of  satisfaction 
for  wrong,  is  governed  by  compassion  for  mental  and  moral 
weakness  that  handicap  the  individual  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, and  aims  to  establish  the  supremacy  of  rational  functions 
in  the  life  of  the  individual  by  promoting  prudence  and  self- 
sacrifice,  which  are  rendered  absolutely  necessary  by  the  severe 
pressure  of  environment  represented  by  restraints. 

3,  Retribution,  or  Retributive  Punishment. — This  is 
punishment  proper  in  both  form  and  object.  It  is  what  is 
often  called  punitive  justice,  which  follows  the  old  conception 
of  rendering  satisfaction  for  crime  in  terms  of  pain.  Retributive 
expresses  this  idea,  denoting  a  return  for  ill  done,  which  is 
supposed  to  be  the  equivalent  of  the  wrong.  It  was  a  mode 
of  satisfying  the  person  supposed  to  have  the  right  of  revenge. 
In  the  earliest  stages  of  life  the  individual  wronged  was  granted 
the  right  and  power  to  avenge  himself  Society  handed  the  crim- 
inal over  to  the  injured  party,  or  permitted  that  party  to  decide 
the  mode  of  punishment.  The  next  step  was  to  assume  the 
function  of  executing  the  revenge  itself,  as  more  likely  to 
temper  the  punishment  to  the  crime  and  to  control  or  eliminate 
the  mere  desire  for  revenge.  This  transfer  of  the  right  of 
revenge  to  society  was  a  decided  advance  in  civilization  and 
humanity,  in  that  it  restrained  vindictiveness  and  encouraged  a 
judicial  treatment  of  wrongdoing  by  employing  the  judgment  of 
more  disinterested  parties  in  making  the  award.  The  progress  of 
civilization  has  been  gradually  moving  away  from  the  notion  of 
pure  retril>ution  in  punisliment,  although  the  conccjition  of  pun- 
ishment and  the  feelings  of  man  toward  wrongdoing  retain  some 
of  their  original  import  and  intensity.  It  is  hard  to  eradicate 
from  man  and  his  institutions  the  notion  of  dc!<ert  in  tlie  infliction 
of  punishment,  and  tlie  fact  is  decidedly  in  favor  of  retribution, 
if  not  in  its  motive,  certainly  in  the  mca.'<ure  of  pain  inflicted, 
because  it  is  a  criterion  of  the  degree  of  responsibility  sup])osed 
to  characterize  the  sul)ject.  But  the  ground  ujjon  which  it  is 
placed  is  not  the  w<trth  of  personality,  but  tlie  amount  of  injury 
done  by  wrong.     When  applied  in  its  pure  form  it  pays  as  little 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUNISHMENT  247 

attention  to  the  correction  of  the  individual  as  does  the  policy  of 
prevention.  Indeed  it  is  practically  nothing  but  prevention  plus 
the  satisfaction  of  revenge,  at  least  in  its  original  form,  Avhile  its 
later  form,  though  eliminating  the  right  of  the  injured  party  to 
decide  the  punishment,  endeavors  to  determine  the  amount  of 
desert  more  calmly  and  judicially,  but  nevertheless  gives  some 
respect  to  offended  morality  in  the  severity  of  its  measures; 
■whether  justly  or  not  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  at  present. 

It  is  superfluous  to  say  anything  about  the  relation  between 
necessitarianism  and  retributive  punishment,  for  they  are  ab- 
solutely opposed  to  each  other.  Necessitarians  must  supi^ose 
that  moral  indignation,  -with  its  tendency  to  inflict  punishment 
vindictively,  is  absurd,  because  a  man's  actions,  if  necessitated, 
are  no  more  to  be  blamed  than  the  falling  of  a  stone,  and  as- 
suming this,  the  satisfaction  of  revenge  can  accomplish  nothing 
either  in  the  way  of  compensation  or  correction.  They  must 
think  so  in  regard  to  retribution,  though  they  grant  that  it  can- 
not be  helped  and  that  it  is  as  much  necessitated  as  the  volitions 
■which  they  account  for  in  their  ■way.  They  can  only  regard  it 
as  one  of  the  many  inconsistencies  of  nature  which  does  not 
square  ■with  their  theory  and  their  humanity.  Hence  they  must 
oppose  all  legislative  attempts  to  adopt  retribution  as  a  motive 
of  punishment,  though  their  sense  of  humor  apart  from  the  fatal 
necessity  of  their  o'wn  action  might  teach  them  that  it  ■was  use- 
less to  do  that. 

But  whatever  the  relation  between  necessitarianism  and  re- 
tributive theories  of  punishment,  it  is  important  to  observe  that 
retribution  assumes  perfect  responsibility  for  conduct.  Inas- 
much as  it  has  not  been  identified,  and  could  not  consistently 
be  identified,  with  indefinite  periods  of  restraint,  it  assumes 
equality  of  criminal  character  as  well  as  criminality  of  conduct, 
and  shapes  the  penalty  to  suit  its  view  of  the  supposed  fact,  and 
that  is  that  there  are  no  palliating  circumstances  in  human 
weakness  and  defects.  It  assumes  that  crime  is  committed  in 
cold  blood,  with  perfect  consciousness  of  its  nature,  its  conse- 
quences and   heinousness,   and  without   any  palliation  in  bad 


248  ELEJIEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

education,  environment,  habits,  and  heredity,  and  for  this  reason 
supposes  all  men  equal.  But  in  spite  of  this  assumption  com- 
mon sense  has  been  too  strong  to  follow  out  the  theory  consist- 
ently. Concessions  have  been  made,  consciously  and  uncon- 
sciously, from  time  to  time  in  the  course  of  progress  to  the 
feeling  that  men  are  not  morally  equal  and  that  they  are  not 
equally  responsible.  This  opinion  has  been  too  well  confirmed 
by  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  whose  chief  value  lies,  not  in  any 
new  end  which  it  discovers  for  the  moral  life,  nor  in  any  new 
principles  which  it  might  enable  us  to  apply,  but  in  the  decided 
limitations  which  it  proves  to  exist  regarding  responsibility 
and  the  mpral  equality  of  men.  In  this  it  has  dealt  a  useful 
blow  to  the  theory  of  retributive  punishment,  if  not  in  wholly 
eliminating  its  principle  of  desert,  certainly  in  showing  the 
caution  with  which  it  should  be  applied.  If  necessitarianism 
were  only  a  theory  of  limited  responsil)ility,  Avhich  it  is  not,  the 
humanitarian  movement  for  the  rational  treatment  of  criminals, 
which  has  been  associated  with  it,  might  have  saved  it  from 
much  hostility.  But  it  has  so  thoroughly  antagonized  the 
doctrine  of  free  will  as  to  make  its  humanitarianism  absurd, 
showing  once  more  that  men  are  usually  better  than  their 
theories  where  they  are  serious  at  all.  But  even  if  the  theory 
has  its  weakness,  the  conception  of  man  and  his  limitations 
which  has  been  associated  with  it  has  been  more  correct  perhaps 
than  that  of  the  freedoraist  who  in  advocating  freedom  has 
assumed  or  asserted  a  doctrine  of  responsibility  which  was  as 
untrue  as  the  necessitarian's  denial  of  freedom.  Probably  both 
parties  equally  misconceived  the  issue,  and  the  consequence  has 
been  a  useless  controversy  on  both  sides.  The  reconciliation  of 
])oth  of  them  by  the  admission  of  freedom  and  the  denial  of 
perfect  and  equal  responsibility  in  all  men,  confirmed  and  con- 
ditioned as  this  latter  is  by  the  unc(jual  moral  development  of 
men,  prepares  the  way  for  modifying  or  abandoning  retributive 
punishment  and  substituting  corrective  discipline  for  it.  Cor- 
rection is  tl)e  only  motive  that  can  keep  down  passion  and  set 
up  reason    in    the  administration  of  punitive  justice.     More- 


RESPONSIBILITY  AND  PUNISHMENT  249 

over,  with  indefinite  j)criods  of  restraint,  tliis  system  can  adapt 
itself  more  readily  to  man's  limited  responsibility  and  make  his 
moralization,  rather  than  retributive  satisfaction,  the  main  object 
of  his  discipline.  This,  after  all,  is  the  process  of  nature  with 
man.  It  is  one  of  development  into  higher  degrees  of  responsi- 
bility, and  social  institutions  should  imitate  it  in  their  methods. 
It  does  not  assume  that  men  are  equal,  but  aims  to  make  them 
so.  Corrective  discipline,  therefore,  is  the  only  policy  consistent 
with  men's  unequal  responsibility,  and  it  effects  its  purpose  by 
the  modification  of  their  environment  and  the  application  of  all 
influences  that  can  affect  their  habits.  This  is  the  method  of 
nature,  though  it  shows  more  patience,  mercy,  and  long  suffering 
than  man  himself  in  the  administration  of  its  laws.  The  his- 
tory of  man's  whole  growth  in  responsibility  is  the  history  of 
evolution  and  of  education.  All  the  complex  arrangements  of 
environment,  political  and  social  institutions,  education,  penal 
discipline,  religious  sanctions,  and  conditions  meant  to  arrest  the 
first  impulses  of  the  will,  are  agencies  which  presuppose  moral 
inequalities  and  therefore  limited  responsibility,  but  aim,  by 
directing  man's  habits,  to  secure  him  the  right  to  a  larger 
liberty.  All  punishment  should  aim  to  imitate  this  system  of 
moralizing  forces.  It  should  make  the  life  of  the  criminal  one 
of  probation  instead  of  retributive  suffering,  and  it  proceeds 
upon  a  mistaken  conception  of  responsibility,  if  it  does  not  allow 
for  ignorance,  passion,  heredity,  and  similar  influences.  The 
responsibility  of  scholasticism  is  an  ideal,  not  a  reality,  and 
punishment  while  assuming  its  limited  character  should  be 
directed  to  the  development  of  it  into  a  higher  degree. 

Note. — There  is  a  question  as  to  what  determines  the  degree  as  well  as 
the  kind  of  punishment,  and  the  doctrine  of  indefinite  periods  of  confine- 
ment would  seem  to  imply  that  it  depends  upon  the  degree  of  responsi- 
bility. If  "  degree  of  punishment"  be  synonymous  with  indefinite  periods 
of  restraint,  this  would  be  true ;  but  it  is  not  altogether  so.  As  above  pre- 
sented, the  less  the  responsibility  the  longer  the  restraint,  and  the  greater 
the  responsibility  the  shorter  the  restraint,  assuming  in  the  former  case 
that  the  punishment  requires  this  to  be  effective,  and  in  the  latter  that  it 
does  not.    But  when  it  comes  to  punishment  other  than  merely  the  pre- 


250  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

ventivc  form,  the  greater  the  responsibility  the  severer  the  punishment, 
and  the  less  the  responsibility  the  milder  the  punishment.  This  is 
especially  applicable  to  retributive  forms  of  punishment.  But  the  kind 
and  degree  of  penalty  is  not  wholly  determined  by  the  degree  of  responsi- 
bility. It  is  also  affected  by  the  character  of  the  act  apart  from  the 
responsibility  of  the  agent,  or  rather  in  addition  to  it.  Punishment  of 
every  kind  can  be  applied  only  to  actions  in  which  social  welfare  is  in- 
fringed ;  that  is,  it  applies  only  in  matters  of  justice,  and  this  is  determined 
solely  by  objective  morality.  Responsibility  being  the  same  the  degree  of 
punishment  will  be  proportioned  to  the  amount  of  injury  done,  and  the 
amount  of  injury  being  the  same,  the  period  of  restraint  will  be  proportioned 
to  the  degree  of  responsibility  possessed  by  the  agent.  This  is  determined 
solely  by  subjective  conditions.  But  the  fact  that  objective  morality  may 
vary  with  the  same  degree  of  responsibility  makes  it  necessary  to  vary  the 
pressure  exerted  by  penalties  in  order,  on  the  one  hand,  to  strengthen  the 
motives  against  temptation,  and,  on  the  other,  to  compensate  for  the 
amount  of  injury  done  in  a  crime. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   NATURE   OF   CONSCIENCE. 

I.  INTRODUCTORY.— The  discussion  of  the  preceding  chapter 
revealed  the  fact  that  the  existence  of  conscience  was  necessary 
to  responsibility.  It  implies  that  freedom,  being  given  responsi- 
bility and  conscience,  must  stand  or  fall  together.  If  we  hold 
that  man  is  responsible  we  must  also  assume  that  he  has  a  con- 
science. On  the  other  hand,  if  he  has  a  moral  nature  he  must 
be  responsible.  The  two  conceptions  are  in  fact  practically  iden- 
tical and  connected  with  the  same  social  interests.  It  remains 
now,  after  having  stated  the  relation  between  conscience  and 
responsibility,  to  investigate  the  nature  of  conscience  and  to  dis- 
cuss the  various  problems  involved  in  the  history  of  controver- 
sies about  it.  Thus  far  we  have  only  alluded  to  conscience  as  a 
sense  of  duty  and  as  a  motive  to  volition  of  a  s^Decial  kind. 
But  we  took  no  account  of  its  peculiar  character  as  a  distinguish- 
ing trait  of  man,  farther  than  to  regard  it  as  offering  the  highest 
motive  to  the  will.  We  have  now  to  examine  its  constitution, 
development,  and  authority,  all  of  which  enter  into  the  questions 
regarding  its  function  in  the  economy  of  life.  This  process  will 
involve  the  study  of  .several  matters  of  interest  which  will  be 
comprehended  in  the  history  of  the  idea  expressed  by  the  term, 
the  history  of  the  term,  the  philosophic  conception  of  conscience, 
its  analysis,  and  its  development.  They  might  all  of  them  be 
comprehended  under  its  definition,  but  this  will  appear  too  broad 
a  use  of  the  term  to  embrace  the  question  of  the  analysis  and 
origin  of  conscience,  and  hence  we  shall  confine  the  definition  to 
the  other  topics. 

251 


252  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

11.  THE  DEFINITION  OF  CONSCIENCE.— A  complete  defi- 
nition of  what  is  expressed  by  the  term  conscience  involves  a 
rather  elaborate  process.  It  is  not  enough  to  know  that  it  may- 
be regarded  as  a  particular  moral  faculty,  because  so  many  con- 
ceptions of  it  have  been  held  that  we  should  pre-empt  the  value 
of  many  of  them  by  forestalling  all  interest  in  their  meaning. 
Hence  the  definition  of  what  we  shall  finally  regard  as  a  very 
complex  function  must  be  preceded  by  a  study  of  the  growth  of 
the  idea  exj^ressed  by  the  term  conscience.  As  a  preliminary 
definition,  however,  we  can  adopt  the  notion  that  conscience  is  a 
name  for  the  consciousness  of  moral  distinctions  and  of  the  obliga- 
tion to  respect  them.  In  this  conception  we  have  not  identified  it 
with  moral  nature,  because  that  expression  is  often  taken  to 
denote  vaiious  functions  which  may  regulate  right  conduct  with- 
out involving  the  sense  of  duty.  This  may  be  a  wrong  concep- 
tion, but  it  nevertheless  exists  and  assumes  that  morality  may 
be  purely  objective  and  our  disposition  to  realize  it  nothing 
more  than  prudence  and  instinct,  which  will  go  by  the  name 
moral  because  they  happen  to  be  directed  to  what  is  called  a 
moral  order.  Conscience,  however,  may  be  a  reflective  capac- 
ity concerned  with  the  consciousness  of  man's  relation  and  duties 
to  this  moral  order,  and  requires  to  be  examined  as  such,  though 
we  shall  often  find  it  identified  with  the  general  notion  of  a 
moral  nature. 

1st.  History  of  the  Conception. — The  conception  of  conscience 
is  much  older  than  a  term  to  denote  it  specifically.  It  was  not 
clear  and  well  defined  at  first,  because  no  conception  ever  becomes 
so  until  philosophic  analysis  is  applied  to  it  But  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  peculiar  function  in  man's  moral  life  and  nature  appeared 
probably  as  early  as  he  began  to  respect  social  feelings  and  to 
mark  conduct  or  desires  in  conflict  with  them.  Perhaps  if  we 
were  to  push  iiKpiiries  back  into  the  lore  and  legends  of  savage 
life  we  should  find  traces  of  the  idea  in  the  .social  institutions  there 
adopted  and  the  behavior  of  those  who  respected  or  violated 
tlicni.  But  we  need  not  go  so  far  l)ack  as  all  lliis.  We  can  be 
content    with     the   tjnlinarv    limits    of  occidcnlal     lii.-torv,   with 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  253 

wliicii  the  philosophic  interest  of  modern  times  is  more  particu- 
larly connected,  including  herein  a  bri^  allusion  to  Judaistic 
development,  Init  confining  the  most  of  our  attention  to  Hellenic 
thought. 

The  first  trace  of  the  idea  of  conscience,  showing  a  high  grade 
of  civilization,  is  probably  found  in  the  mythological  conception 
of  the  Furies.  At  first  these  were,  of  course,  external  divinities 
whose  business  it  was  to  avenge  crime,  and  no  element  of  con- 
science as  an  internal  faculty  would  appear  to  have  been  present. 
But  aside  from  the  testimony  to  a  moral  nature  which  such  a 
myth  represents,  when  the  rationalistic  age  appeared  it  utilized 
the  idea  to  express  the  revenge  which  a  man's  own  remorse  in- 
flicted upon  him  for  his  wrongdoing.  This  was  the  natural 
result  of  a  desire  to  obtain  a  useful  meaning  or  truth  out  of 
what  men  were  forced  to  admit  was  literally  a  legend.  In 
many  of  the  Greek  poets  the  spiritual,  that  is,  moral  concep- 
tion of  the  Furies,  coupled  with  their  well-known  disbelief  in  the 
external  existence  of  such  beings,  can  only  be  interjii-eted  as  evi- 
dence that  they  found  in  man's  nature  an  avenger  of  wrong,  the 
reaction  of  his  own  nature  against  the  violation  of  better 
instincts.  This  was  a  limited  conception,  it  is  true,  but,  though 
it  goes  no  farther  than  to  express  the  feeling  of  remorse  and  pen- 
itence for  wrong  already  done,  it  goes  as  far  as  many  a  popular 
use  of  the  term  still  goes,  which  in  fact  is  due  to  that  very 
usage  and  conception.  Some  writers,  as  Benn,  for  instance,  dis- 
pute the  right  to  consider  the  Furies  as  in  any  way  representing 
the  idea  of  conscience,  for  the  reason  that  the  term  does  not  involve 
any  premonitory  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  but  only 
a  dread  of  consequences  after  the  act.  But  this  wholly  depends 
upon  the  question  whether  we  shall  limit  the  conception  of  con- 
science to  a  cognitive  power  or  allow  it  to  include  the  retro- 
spective emotions.  Usage  is  not  always  the  same  in  this  matter. 
Sometimes  conscience  seems  to  be  merely  an  intellectual  power  to 
show  man  the  path  of  duty  and  sometimes  it  is  the  retrospect 
of  consciousness  upon  its  own  course  of  conduct,  and  nothing  hin- 
ders us  from  supposing  that  the  two  may  go  together,  while  we 


254  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

assume  that  mythology,  with  the  moral  iuterests  of  the  age 
which  it  represented,  emphasized  the  emotional  element  as  show- 
ing the  most  distinct  traces  in  man  of  a  capacity  for  respecting 
the  rights  of  his  fellows,  even  if  they  appeared  only  after  the 
deed  was  done.  Besides,  all  students  of  human  nature  have 
recognized  in  the  various  features  of  the  Furies  the  reflection  of 
what  is  popularly  called  conscience,  and  thus  the  representation 
of  a  literary  analysis.  Whether  we  choose  to  regard  it  as  repre- 
senting the  whole  of  what  is  thought  of  as  conscience  depends 
upon  the  definition,  but  it  certainly  indicates  the  belief  in  a 
function  of  mind  which  is  more  than  mere  prudence  or  regard 
for  self,  and  displays  the  social  element  of  man's  nature,  which 
becomes  absorbed  in  the  later  notion  of  morality  and  its  sanc- 
tions. That  function  seemed  unique  to  the  primitive  miud,  and 
the  power  which  it  did  have,  or  should  have,  might  well  be  per- 
sonified in  the  conception  of  deities  who  were  to  be  the  avengers 
of  wrong. 

A  passing  allusion  to  the  story  of  Cain  and  the  curse  he  was 
to  suffer  for  the  murder  of  his  brother  Abel,  suffices  to  show  that 
Judaistic  thought  had  recognized  the  same  peculiarity  in  man, 
though  the  intellectual  fortunes  of  that  people  did  not  give  rise 
to  so  elaborated  a  view  as  Hellenic  literature.  The  idea,  too, 
seems  not  to  have  survived  nor  to  have  been  needed  after  the 
establishment  of  "  cities  of  refuge,"  which  were  a  protection  to 
the  criminal  from  too  much  license  in  the  exercise  of  revenge, 
though  beyond  their  limits  this  passion  seems  to  have  enjoyed 
free  development.  This  political  arrangement  to  punish  wrong, 
with  its  slight  limitations  seems  to  have  made  the  moral  appeal, 
found  in  Hellenic  thought,  either  unnecessary  or  ineffective. 
At  any  rate,  little  more  than  a  liint  of  what  the  rationalistic 
mind  finds  in  the  idea  of  the  Furies  of  Greek  mythology  ever 
appears  in  Jewish  legend  anj  law.  But  if  it  did  not  discover 
the  retrospective  and  emotional  element  of  conscience,  it  found 
asocial  concepti<jn  equally  important  in  its  notion  of  fuithfiil- 
nesn  or  fidelity  of  will  to  a  principle  of  righteousness,  which  was 
only  ancjthcr  name  for  conscience  as  a  director  of  man's  conduct 


THE  NATURE  OF  COXSCIEXCE  255 

toward  his  fellows  aud  iu  his  relation  to  the  moral  law.  In  the 
Old  Testament  this  conception  is  very  prominent,  and  it  repre- 
sents to  the  moralists,  the  prophets  of  that  time,  the  conception 
of  that  peculiarity  in  man  which  distinguishes  hira  as  a  moral 
being  and  which  now  goes  by  the  name  of  conscience. 

To  return  to  Hellenic  thought,  the  " dsemon'Xdai/Aovwv)  of 
Socrates  has  often  been  regarded  as  the  equivalent  of  con- 
science, and  it  is  even  supposed  that  Socrates  intended  his  view' 
of  it  to  be  a  doctrine  of  conscience.  This  we  regard  as  a  mis- 
taken view  of  it,  reflected  rather  from  the  admirable  and  consci- 
entious character  of  Socrates  than  from  what  he  meant  by  his 
doctrine.  There  are  three  characteristics  in  his  doctrine  of  the 
"dtiemon,"  governing  him  and  his  conduct,  which  shut  it  out 
from  being  conceived  as  denoting  conscience  in  any  proper  sense 
of  the  term.  They  are :  (a)  It  was  an  external,  not  an  inner, 
monitor  of  his  conduct ;  (b)  it  was  a  warning  not  to  act,  and 
never  an  imperative  to  do  the  right ;  (c)  it  was  a  supernatural 
influence  advising  Socrates  against  certain  things  that  were 
imprudent  and  whose  consequences  he  could  not  foreknow.  All 
these  shut  it  out  from  being  anything  like  what  we  call  con- 
science, except  in  one  accidental  feature  of  being  to  some  extent 
a  guide  to  conduct.  But  whatever  the  resemblance  in  this 
respect,  it  was  too  far  removed  from  the  cognitive  and  emotional 
ideas  of  conscience  to  be  included  among  the  representatives  of  it. 

Plato's  conception  of  reason  regulating  desire  was  much 
nearer  the  later  doctrine  of  conscience  than  the  "  daemon " 
of  Socrates.  It  represents  in  the  mind  a  higher  power  than 
desire  and  passion,  a  power  which  has  the  highest  good  for 
its  object  and  Avhich  keejis  the  other  two  in  subordination  to 
itself,  or  moderates  them  to  a  due  mean  in  their  satisfaction. 
The  latter  is  the  truer  conception  of  its  function,  and  shows  why 
Plato  did  not  reach  so  radical  a  distinction  between  desire 
and  reason  as  many  modern  writers  make  between  desire  and 
conscience.  With  Plato  both  may  have  the  same  object  in 
kind,  but  not  in  degree  or  rank.  Desire  was  likely  to  be  irra- 
tional and  intemperate  in  its  pursuit  of  good,  while  reason  kept 


256  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

thh  impulse  under  control  and  directed  the  will  to  a  remoter 
end,  which,  though  the  good  of  desire,  Avas  adjusted  to  the  perfec- 
tion and  virtue  of  the  individual  subject.  But  the  modern  doc- 
trine of  conscience  often  wholly  rejects  the  good  of  desire  as  its 
object,  and  sets  up  another  of  a  different  kind  by  radically 
distinguishing  between  the  good  and  virtue,  the  good  being  hap- 
piness and  virtue  action  according  to  law,  or  a  quality  of  will. 
The  distinction  is  one  which  probably  cannot  be  clearly  made  in 
the  last  analysis  in  any  sense  that  would  wholly  separate  the 
good  from  virtue,  but  its  motive  has  been  to  separate  desire  and 
conscience  sufficiently  to  prevent  the  confusion  of  moral  objects 
of  volition  with  that  of  merely  natural  desires.  But  in  so  far 
as  reason  was  a  power  subordinating  all  other  impulses  to  a 
higher  law,  it  represented  at  least  one  function  of  conscience  as 
universally  understood. 

Aristotle  and  the  Stoics  followed  in,  the  same  general  line  of 
thought,  the  former,  however,  being  less  ascetic  than  the  latter, 
and  in  that  respect  does  not  develop  the  antithesis  between 
desire  and  reason  so  emphatically  as  Plato  and  the  redoubtable 
Stoics.  INIoreover,  the  use  of  the  term  reason  to  denote  the  gen- 
eral cognition  of  truth  apart  from  morality  was  likely  to  confuse 
its  meaning  with  that  of  a  power  supreme  over  impulse  and 
which  was  not  cognitive  at  all,  and  hence  the  Stoics  seem  to 
have  been  the  first  to  employ  a  term  which  denoted  the  con- 
sciousness of  right  as  opposed  to  the  consciousness  of  fact  or  truth, 
and  which  ultimately  came  to  denote  consciousness  in  general. 
It  was  a  term  for  "  concomitant  knowledge  "  (ffweldf/ais)  and 
in  later  philosophers  was  often  distinctly  used  for  conscience.  It 
denoted  reflective  knowledge  on  matters  of  conduct.  It  was  the 
idea  of  a  power  to  perceive  the  r'v^ht  prior  to  its  ])erformance,  as 
the  mythological  conception  was  that  of  self-judgment  posterior 
to  the  act,  and  so  was  an  attenii)t  to  distinguisli  duty  from  truth, 
though  tiie  distinction  became  clear  with  time  and  under  the  in- 
fluence of  another  type  (jf  thought.  There  was  also  in  the  Stoic 
philosophy  the  consciousness  of  nuui's  entire  sul)ordination  to 
nature,  the  duty  to  live  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  nature  and 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  25 1 

reason,  whicli,  if  it  was  not  a  doctrine  of  conscience,  represented 
niucli  the  same  conceptions  as  tliat  doctrine.  The  sacrifice  of 
desire  to  this  higher  law  with  its  stern  resistance  to  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure  resembles  and  may  even  be  said  to  have  given  the 
coloring  to  the  asceticism  associated  with  the  modern  idea 
of  conscience.  The  idea  but  not  the  name  was  there,  though  it 
did  not  reach  so  well-defined  a  development  as  under  Christian 
thought. 

The  Epicureans  had  no  place  for  the  idea,  and  the  Neo-Platon- 
ists  absorbed  it  in  a  doctrine  of  religious  ecstasy,  which  did  not 
distinguish,  as  the  modern  doctrine  of  conscience  does,  between 
the  moral  and  the  religious.  This  distinction,  however,  is  due  to 
an  age  that  was  more  skeptical  in  regard  to  the  divine,  and  yet 
retained  its  conviction  of  the  importance  of  social  order  and  law> 
to  which  it  confined  the  function  of  conscience.  The  Neo-Pla- 
tonists  make  the  moral  and  the  religious  objects  of  volition  the 
same,  and  with  them  Christianity  agreed,  while  following  the  as- 
ceticism of  Plato,  the  Stoics,  and  the  Neo-Platonists. 

In  spite  of  the  lofty  conceptions  of  Stoicism  and  Neo-Platonism, 
Greek  life  generally  did  not  approach  a  doctrine  of  conscience  in 
its  conception  of  the  right.  Before  the  Stoics  the  resemblance  is 
lost  in  the  conception  of  prudence,  wisdom,  and  the  highest 
good,  which,  while  they  involved  the  control  of  natural  desires 
and  passions,  nevertheless  represented  an  attraction  of  reason 
which  was  less  exacting  and  required  less  of  the  notion  of  sac- 
rifice than  the  modern  conception  of  conscience.  The  Greek 
always  interpreted  the  object  of  volition  as  a  good,  even  when  he 
called  it  virtue,  and  drew  the  distinction  only  when  he  wanted  to 
lower  tlie  rank  of  pleasure  and  to  elevate  that  of  perfection, 
though  he  always  admitted  that  pleasure  was  its  accompaniment. 
He  did  not  think  that  the  attainment  of  the  good  involved  any 
struggle  except  with  himself.  A  l^fe  according  to  nature  was  at 
the  basis  of  all  Greek  consciousness,  inasmuch  as  it  looked  upon 
nature  as  an  ideal  system  of  i-eality.  The  antithesis  between 
nature  and  God  had  not  yet  been  raised.  The  world  was  organ- 
ized in  the  interests  of  man,  and  he  had  only  to  regulate  the 


2o8  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

anarchic  tendencies  of  his  own  impulses  in  order  to  attain  the 
good.  The  sacrifice  involved  was  not  regarded  as  a  sacrifice, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  comj^ensated  by  a  higher  good,  and  hence  the 
object  of  volition  to  the  Greek  consciousnsss  was  always  pre- 
sented as  an  attraction,  a  fascinating  good,  if  only  the  individual 
could  be  made  to  see  it.  Even  the  submission  of  the  Stoic  was 
not  a  surrender  of  self  to  the  insatiable  demands  of  law,  but  was 
only  a  rational  adjustment  to  an  order  which  brought  ineffable 
peace  and  contentment  with  it.  But  in  Christianity,  and  later 
thought,  Avith  their  opposition  between  nature  and  God,  added  to 
that  between  desire  and  reason,  there  was  the  sense  of  a  struggle 
against  opposing  influences  in  the  pursuit  of  virtue  which  was 
seldom  if  ever  felt  by  the  Greek.  The  modern  notion  of  con- 
science was  born  of  struggle  agaitid  nature,  not  for  adjustment 
to  it.  It  ajDpears  most  distinctly  in  Christianity,  especially  in 
St.  Paul,  where  it  denotes  a  life  of  sacrifice  and  struggle,  of  op- 
position to  the  world  and  the  flesh,  external  nature  and  passion, 
wholly  repudiating  pleasure  as  an  object  of  true  volition,  and 
ever  since,  the  conception  has  retained  more  or  less  of  that  color- 
ing, as  is  clearly  indicated  in  the  prevalent  notion  that  duty  is 
always  opposed  to  interest.  It  also  adds  more  distinctly  the 
notion  of  self-judgment  to  that  of  conscientious  direction  of  the 
will,  while  distinguishing  more  clearly  than  even  the  Stoics  the 
conflict  between  the  law  of  reason  and  of  desire. 

Scholastic  and  media}val  tliought  simply  developed  wliat 
Cliristianity  inaugurated,  namely,  the  sense  of  struggle  witli  the 
world  and  with  desire  in  the  process  of  regeneration,  and  defined 
conscience  as  the  oracle  of  God  in  the  human  breast,  command- 
ing inflexible  ol)edience  to  His  will  and  intensified  the  sacrifice 
of  natural  pleasures  to  the  attainment  of  salvation.  But  when 
the  Renaissance,  witli  its  revival  of  Greek  ideals,  the  Protestant 
Ilcformatioii.  with  its  inherent  tendencies  to  Rationalism,  and  the 
industrial  development,  with  i!s  purely  economic  and  social  ideals, 
apjxun'd,  the  notion  of  conscience  became  secularized,  losing  its 
rrligiouH  import,  though  rctaming  all  the  inflexibility  and  abso- 
luteness of  its  traditional  signification.     But  with  the  confluence 


THE  XATURE  OF  COXSCIE^'CE  259 

of  so  many  streams  of  thouglit,  it  ha?  gathered  iuto  its  folds  most 
of  the  conceptions  that  have  been  affiliated  with  the  morality  of 
all  ages  and  has  become  too  complex  to  be  described  by  a  single 
epithet,  though  it  is  distinguished  from  ancient  thought  by  the 
sublime  and  unbending  adhesion  to  law  which  it  commands 
against  the  allurements  of  passion  and  pleasure. 

2d.  History  of  the  Term  "Conscience." — The  history  of  the 
term  conscience  partly  coincides  with  the  history  of  the  idea,  but 
not  altogether  so.  The  Stoics  seem  to  have  been  the  first  to 
adopt  the  Greek  equivalent  of  the  Latin  conscientia,  namely, 
Gvveidr]0i5,  and  were  followed  in  its  employment  by  the  Neo- 
Platonists  and  Xew  Testament  writers,  principally  St.  Paul. 
Its  earliest  meaning  was  self-consciousness  as  opposed  to  mere 
knowledge  of  the  unreflective  sort,  and  did  not  denote  conscien- 
tiousness as  conscience  does  to-day.  It  was  to  denote  a  more 
distinct  conception  of  responsibility  and  moral  character  that 
the  term  was  adopted,  to  indicate,  not  only  that  the  agent  was 
conscious  in  his  action,  but  that  he  was  conscious  of  this  con- 
sciousness and  could  control  his  action  by  deliberation.  Hence 
the  first  conception  was  self-consciousness  as  distinguished  from 
conscientiousness,  though  it  involved  a  conception  of  right  as 
distinct  from  truth.  St.  Paul's  usage  of  the  term  gives  it  a  more 
modern  coloring,  though  it  is  possible  in  most  cases  to  substitute 
consciousness  for  it.  AVith  the  development  of  Christianity  the 
term  began  to  differentiate  from  the  primary  meaning  of  the 
term  from  which  it  was  taken  until  mere  consciousness  is  not 
enough  to  indicate  its  meaning  and  the  two  ideas  are  quite  dis- 
tinct in  all  but  the  French  language  where  conscience  and  con- 
sciousness are  denoted  by  the  same  term  (conscience).  To  con- 
sciousness the  idea  of  conscience  now  adds  the  conception  of 
conscientiousness  or  the  sense  of  duty,  submission  to  a  law  of 
reason,  often,  if  not  always,  in  antagonism  with  interest  and 
desire.  But  in  the  course  of  its  history  it  absorbed  all  the  asso- 
ciations and  implications  involved  in  morality  and  the  influences 
designed  to  make  it  effective.  This  can  be  illustrated  by  exam- 
ining some  of  the  current  definitions  of  the  term. 


260  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

3d.  Current  and  Other  Meanings  of  the  Term The  vari- 
ous definitions  of  conscience  Inive  taken  their  coloring  from  the 
general  philosophy  of  the  men  giving  them,  now  having  a  theo- 
logical import,  and  now  an  ethical  as  distinct  from  the  purely 
cognitive  function  of  the  mind.  This  will  be  apparent  from  the 
examination  of  several  of  them. 

Bishop  Butler  defined  conscience  as  "  the  principle  in  man  by 
•which  lie  approves  or  disapproves  of  his  heart,  temper,  and 
actions."  This  conception  makes  conscience  wholly  an  emotional 
capacity  of  estimating  the  value  of  objects  of  will.  If  judgment 
be  even  implied  in  it,  that  function  is  so  remote  from  the  notion 
of  cognition  that  it  does  not  require  to  be  taken  into  account. 
But  certainly  the  prominent  element  is  emotion  both  of  the  pros- 
jyective  kind,  which  forecasts  the  ideal  and  obligatory  object  of 
volition,  and  of  the  retrospective  kind,  which  expresses  the  satis- 
faction or  dissatisfaction  of  the  subject  with  his  conduct  after  it 
is  done.  Yet  there  is  nothing  in  this  definition  which  expresses, 
more  than  by  implication,  the  sense  of  imperativeness  so  gener- 
ally associated  with  the  conception  of  conscience. 

Dugald  Stewart  says :  "  Conscience  coincides  exactly  with 
moral  faculty,  with  the  diflference  that  the  former  refers  to  our 
own  conduct,  while  the  latter  expresses  the  power  by  which  we 
approve  or  disapprove  the  conduct  of  others."  This  is  a  very 
interesting  definition,  inasmuch  as  it  distinguishes  between  the 
mental  states  involved  in  self-judgment  and  those  in  the  judg- 
ment of  others.  For  instance,  penitence  and  remorse  can  only 
be  felt  in  reference  to  self.  We  cannot  feel  remorse,  but  only 
grief,  for  others.  Remorse  is  self-condemnation,  and  in  so  far  as 
C(jnscicnce  is  the  power  of  reflection  on  our  own  pei"sonal  re- 
sponsibility, it  cannot  be  identified  witli  the  feelings  that  pro- 
nounce judgment  on  others.  Hence  Stewart  reflects  the  influ- 
ence of  the  popular  mind  upon  his  conception  of  conscience,  and 
thus  makes  its  limits  narrower  than  moral  faculty.  He  seems, 
however,  to  make  it  wholly  emotional  in  its  functions. 

Schopcnhaur  is  (luitc  emphatic  in  the  same  limitati(^n.  He 
does  not  identify  it  witli  moral  faculty  at  all.     He  defines  it 


THE  NATURE  OF  COXSCIEXCE  261 

simply  as  "  the  satisfaction  or  dissatisfiictiou,  approval  or  disap- 
proval, of  ourselves."  What  the  judgment  of  the  conduct  of 
others  would  be,  this  view  does  not  say. 

"Wuttke  defines  conscience  as  "  the  revelation  of  God  given  in 
rational  self-consciousness."  This  is  a  purely  theological  con- 
ception which  does  not  even  imply  a  judgment  of  conduct,  and 
comes  from  that  early  period  of  thought  when  conscience  was 
supposed  to  be  the  only  trace  of  the  divine  in  man.  But  in- 
stead of  reflecting  the  moral  in  man  as  divine,  it  indicates  noth- 
ing more  than  a  revelation  of  what  could  not  be  found  in 
nature.  It  expresses  no  faculty  to  perceive  right  and  wrong 
apart  from  external  authority,  which  virtually  dispenses  with 
the  need  of  conscience  altogether,  as  it  is  ordinarily  understood. 
We  require  to  know  whether  in  man  moral  faculty  is  anything 
more  than  mere  intellectual  acumen  for  perceiving  distinctions 
which  it  cannot  enforce. 

]Martineau,  in  accordance  with  his  peculiar  theory,  regards 
conscience  as  the  power  to  judge  of  the  relative  value  of  compet- 
ing springs  or  motives  in  consciousness  at  the  same  time.  This 
is  interesting  only  as  making  it  purely  cognitive  in  its  nature 
and  adjusted  to  the  purely  relative  character  of  moral  distinc- 
tions in  a  developing  creature.  Xeither  its  merits  nor  demerits 
can  be  considered  here  without  going  into  Martineau's  general 
ethical  theory,  which  cannot  be  done  in  this  treatise.  We  can 
only  allude  to  it  as  a  unique  definition. 

Dorner  is  more  comprehensive  in  his  conception,  "  Con- 
science," he  says,  "  is  a  knowledge  of  moral  good  and  combines 
the  functions  of  a  cognitive,  a  legislative,  and  a  judicial  power." 
This  view  most  distinctly  recognizes  the  several  and  complex 
elements  entering  into  its  constitution.  It  represents,  first,  the 
power  of  perceiving  that  there  is  a  right  and  a  Avrong,  the  con- 
sciousness of  moral  distinctions  in  general  and  in  j)articular, 
which  is  a  peculiarity  of  moral  faculty.  Then,  it  recognizes 
that  most  important  function  of  conscience  which  represents  it 
as  legislating  for  the  will,  imposing  a  law  for  its  guidance  and 
constraining  it  to  obedience.     Lastly,  it  includes- the  judgment 


262  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

or  verdict  pronounced  upou  conduct ;  it  denotes,  in  its  judicial 
functions,  the  sense  of  approval  or  disaj)proval  of  conduct,  the 
emotional  estimation  of  it  before  or  after  its  j)erformance. 
These  involve  a  combination  of  all  the  elements  recognized 
separately  by  the  other  definitions  and  make  it  truer  than  they 
to  the  various  uses  of  common  life.  It  will  conduce  to  practical 
purposes  only  when  it  can  be  made  thus  comprehensive. 

The  definition  of  Dorner  cannot  be  easily  improved  upon,  for 
it  recognizes  precisely  the  elements  which  predominate  in  the 
fully  developed  conception  of  conscience.  But  in  order  to 
express  the  comprehensiveness  of  it,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
intimacy  of  its  connection  with  general  consciousness,  on  the 
other,  we  shall  define  the  sense  in  which  we  shall  understand  the 
term  in  our  present  discussions.  Instead  of  regarding  it  as  a 
separate  faculty  of  the  mind  in  the  old  sense,  wlien  it  was  thought 
that  it  was  a  sort  of  external  addition  to  intelligence  in  general, 
we  shall  consider  it  as  a  complex  function  embracing  this  and 
other  aspects  of  mind  as  well.  Those  definitions  which  make  it 
purely  cognitive  in  nature  treat  it  as  a  simple  faculty ;  so  also 
those  which  make  it  merely  judicial  or  merely  legislative,  and 
they  very  greatly  confuse  the  problem  of  its  development,  as  well 
as  that  of  its  authority  and  power.  "\Vc  shall,  therefore,  treat  it 
as  a  complex  organism,  and  define  it  in  the  most  comprehensive 
terms  possible.  Conscience,  as  here  understood,  /.s  the  mi)id  occu- 
pied with  moral  phenomena.  This  conception  of  it  does  not  treat 
it  as  a  special  faculty  distinct  from  the  others  as  emotion  is  dis- 
tinct from  cognition.  AVere  it  a  unique  simple  power,  we  might 
define  it  with  such  limitations.  But  Ave  regard  it  as  too  com- 
plex, as  comprehending  too  many  functions  in  the  unity  of  sev- 
eral relations  to  a  common  end,  for  us  to  treat  it  as  a  simple 
power.  Hence  it  is  best  to  regard  it,  so  far  as  it  is  a  power,  as 
the  mind  exercising  any  and  every  function  related  to  moral 
objects.  The  importance  of  this  comprehensive  view  will  be 
apparent  when  we  come  to  analyze  its  fidl  contents.  At  present 
we  wisli  only  t(j  cinj)hasi/(;  the  fact  tliat  it  is  ?io<  a  simple  faculty. 

One  thin^  to  be  noted  in   this  definition  is  that  it  does  not 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  263 

involve  the  supposition  of  anything  different  in  nature  about 
conscience  from  other  mental  activities  as  such,  but  only  in  the 
objects  to  \\liich  those  activities  are  applied.  The  advantage  of 
this  will  appear  in  discussing  the  evolution  of  conscience.  We 
are  in  the  habit  of  distinguishing  the  various  capacities  of  the 
mind  and  maintaining  that  one  of  them  cannot  be  a  modification 
or  derived  quality  from  the  others.  This  is  true  of  such  states  as 
cognition  and  emotion,  sensation  and  memory,  etc.  If,  then,  we 
regarded  conscience  as  a  faculty  in  this  sense  it  would  seem  to  be 
unique  and  underived.  But  by  speaking  and  thinking  of  it  as 
the  mind  in  one  of  its  relations  we  put  it  on  the  level  of  such 
conceptions  as  "  scientific  capacities,"  "  artistic  capacities,"  "  me- 
chanical genius,"  etc.,  all  of  which  merely  denote  the  operation 
of  the  same  functions  either  in  different  proportions  of  combina- 
tion or  as  applied  to  different  objects.  Thus  "  scientific  capac- 
ity "  does  not  employ  any  different  functions  from  tlie  "  artistic." 
Consciousness,  perception,  feeling,  Avill,  are  involved  in  both  of 
them.  But  the  direction  of  them  is  not  the  same.  In  scientific 
activity  perception  is  the  j)assive  observation  of  facts  and  their 
causal  order  ;  in  art  it  is  the  consciousness  of  an  ideal  order.  In 
scientific  employments  emotion  is  curiosity  and  its  satisfaction  ; 
in  art  it  is  aesthetic  enjoyment  of  order,  harmony,  color,  and  the 
pleasing  incidents  of  life.  In  science  the  will  is  attention  and 
the  direction  of  observation  ;  in  art  it  is  both  attention  and  the 
executive  act  of  producing  something.  But  we  see  in  both  the 
same  functions  with  only  a  change  of  object  and  direction.  The 
main  object  of  science  is  truth  ;  that  of  art  is  beauty.  But  art 
cannot  disregard  truth  and  the  emotions  to  which  it  gives  rise, 
and  science  cannot  wholly  eliminate  emotion  from  its  pursuits, 
though  it  modifies  the  mode  of  their  application.  The  same 
general  truth  liolds  good  for  conscience  or  moral  capacity.  It  is 
not  a  new  and  distinct  function  compared  with  the  others  of  the 
mind.  It  is  onh'-  their  combination  in  different  proportions  and 
with  a  different  object,  unless  we  except  the  unique  and  inde- 
pendent character  of  tlie  sense  of  duty,  the  "  categorical  impera- 
tive."    But  apart  from  this  peculiarity  it  is  certainly  nothing 


264  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

but  the  mind  employed  iu  a  certain  Avay,  just  as  science  is  the 
mind  employed  in  its  way.  That  the  sense  of  duty  or  moral  con- 
straint is  not  wholly  indigenous  to  Ethics  might  be  maintained 
from  its  resemblance  or  identity  Avith  the  sense  of  logical  neces- 
sity, the  constraint  of  truth. 

There  is  one  important  fact  to  be  observed  in  giving  such  a 
definition  as  is  here  proposed.  It  is  that  in  philosophic  usage 
the  term  conscience  has  a  very  interesting  ambiguity  in  connec- 
tion with  the  traditional  and  current  discussions  about  it.  The 
definition  adopted  endeavors  to  avoid  it.  But  sometimes  the 
term  conscience  is  used  to  denote  merely  a  power  or  capacity 
which  may  or  may  not  manifest  itself  but  yet  exists.  This  we  shall 
call  the  transcendental  import  of  the  term,  but  meaning  no  more 
tliereby  than  that  there  is  something  more  conceived  by  it  than 
the  mere  mental  states  which  are  illustrations  of  its  activity  and 
proofs  of  its  existence.  There  is  the  second  meaning,  which 
applies  to  any  one  or  all  of  the  mental  states  which  represent  it. 
This  we  shall  call  the  phenomenal  import  of  the  term,  and  shall 
mean  thereby  the  manifestations  of  the  mind  which  show  moral 
perception  and  feeling.  The  first  or  transcendental  meaning 
denotes  a  capaciti/,  power,  or  faculty  ;  the  second  denotes  a  7>/i(?- 
nomenon  or  group  of  phenomena. 

The  importance  of  this  distinction  will  be  discussed  when  we 
come  to  consider  the  evolution  of  conscience.  At  present  we 
require  only  to  understand  the  meaning  of  such  statements  as 
that  a  certain  man  "has  no  conscience."  This  may  mean  that 
he  has  no  capacity  for  appreciating  moral  distinctions  of  any 
kind  whatever,  or  it  nuiy  mean  only  that  lie  does  not  exhibit 
certain  feelings  and  synipathic*  wliicli  we  should  expect  of  him. 
Thus  a  man  commits  a  peculiarly  cruel  crime  and  we  describe 
him  as  without  a  conscience,  though  not  necessarily  implying 
that  there  is  nothing  in  him  to  be  trained  to  know  and  feel  the 
right,  but  only  that  he  has  not  shown  and  does  not  show  it. 
This  is  oidy  to  say  that  although  the  faculty  may  exist,  it  is  not 
aetivc  or  ellective.  The  definition  wliidi  we  have  given  is 
designed  to  cover  both  conceptions,  so  tliaf  we  can  be  at  liberty 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  265 

to  use  it  in  either  sense  as  occasion  may  require.  It  is  no  doubt 
most  general  to  employ  it  to  denote  a  certain  group  of  phe- 
nomena as  effective  influences  molding  the  life  and  conduct  of 
the  individual.  But  the  other  meaning  lurks  in  the  background 
often  enough  to  make  the  affirmation  and  the  denial  of  con- 
science less  contradictory  than  the  statements  are  intended  to  be. 
This  will  appear  in  its  proper  place.  We  must  now  proceed  to 
the  analysis  of  conscience. 

///.  ANALYSIS  OF  CONSCIENCE.— The  definition  of  con- 
science has  shown  us  that  it  is  not  a  simple  faculty  with  only 
one  single  function,  but  a  complex  set  of  functions  connected 
with  the  mind  as  a  general  agent  and  differing  from  the  same 
functions  otherwise  employed  only  in  the  objects  about  which  it 
is  concerned.  The  analysis  of  it  will  further  show  this  com- 
plexity. But  it  is  a  complexity  of  functions  rather  than  a 
complexity  of  agents.  This  is  already  evident  enough.  But  in 
analyzing  it  we  are  to  remember  that  we  are  not  intending  to 
analyze  it  as  a  faculty ;  that  is,  transcendentally,  but  phe- 
nomenally. We  shall  separate  the  various  elements  that  com- 
pose it  as  a  name  for  a  group  of  phenomena,  so  as  to  find  what 
it  is  that  gives  conscience  its  complexity.  In  this  analysis  we 
shall  find  that  it  is  not  quite  coincident  with  what  is  called 
moral  faculty  at  large,  which  includes  autonomy  and  volition  ; 
that  is,  conative  functions,  while  conscience  seems  to  be  confined 
to  intellectual  and  emotional  functions  preceding  the  action  of 
the  will  as  an  effort  to  realize  morality  externally  considered, 
though  aside  from  this  limitation  it  may  contain  elements  of  will 
subjectively  regarded.  The  will  enters  into  conscience  only  in 
so  far  as  it  is  represented  in  attention,  interest,  and  good  disposi- 
tion. Hence  our  analysis  while  taking  account  o:.  the  fact  will 
lay  the  most  stress  upon  the  intellectual  and  emotional  elements. 

1st.  The  Intellectual  Eler.ient. — By  the  intellectual  or  cogni- 
tive element  of  conscience  we  mean  the  consciousness  of  some 
ideal  object  to  be  attained  and  the  judgment  of  discrimination 
between  Avhat  is  right  and  what  is  wrong.  Those  who  limit 
conscience  to  approbation  and  disapprobation  of  conduct  do  not 


266  ELEMUXTS  OF  ETHICS 

ascribe  cognitive  power  to  it  at  all,  and  yet  we  require  to  hioiu 
not  only  the  ultimate  end  which  is  called  good  or  bad,  right  or 
wrong,  but  f.lso  the  particular  actions  which  lead  to  it.  Moral 
judgment  is  the  name  for  the  process  of  distinguishing  right 
from  wrong,  and  it  is  simply  the  cognitive  clement  of  conscience 
which  enlightens,  leads,  and  guides  the  emotional  and  impulsive 
functions  to  the  right  end.  It  gives  the  knowledge  of  virtue, 
but  not  its  power.  It  is  the  cognition  of  the  good  as  distinct 
from  the  perception  of  truth.  No  matter  how  correct  our  feel- 
ings may  be,  moral  judgment  is  required  to  determine  for  us 
T7hen  we  shall  act  rightly ;  not  when  the  will  is  correct,  but 
when  it  is  rightly  directed.  Conscience  determines  its  ideal,  and 
moral  judgment  is  the  element  of  it  which  decides  when  a  par- 
ticular act  agrees  or  disagrees  with  that  ideal.  The  criminal 
who  knows  what  is  right,  but  does  not  feel  the  constraint  of 
duty  sufficiently  to  obey  it,  has  the  cognitive  element  of  con- 
r;cience  sufficiently  to  establish  his  responsibility.  In  fact,  what- 
ever feelings  of  constraint  or  approbation  a  man  might  feel  they 
would  be  of  little  avail,  in  establishing  responsibility,  if  they 
were  not  accompanied  by  intelligence  as  to  the  end  to  which 
they  were  directed.  The  princi2)al  function  of  conscience  in  de- 
termining responsibility  is  knowledge  of  the  end  and  of  the 
means  to  attain  it,  and  knowledge  of  its  character.  !Moral 
judgment  is  governed  by  this  cognition  in  discriminating  be- 
tween right  and  wrong  actions  as  means  to  an  end. 

2d.  The  Emotional  §Iiement. — This  represents  in  general 
the  feeling  attending  our  judgments  of  conduct.  We  may  call 
it  the  feeling  of  right  and  wrong  as  distinguished  from  tlie  mere 
perception  of  truth.  It  is  this  peculiarity  which  has  given  rise 
to  tlie  idea  that  conscience  is  unique  in  its  nature  and  excludes 
cognition  projjcr.  It  comprehends  more  or  less  of  the  sense  of 
obligation  or  tlic  feeling  of  constraint  that  a  certain  thing  ought 
to  ])e  done  and  a  certain  opposite  thing  ought  not  to  be  done. 
Perception  is  an  element  of  this  complex,  but  it  is  not  the  dis- 
tinguishing elciucnt.  It  is  the  emotional  element  of  a])precia- 
tiou    or   depreciation    that   distinguishes   the   act   from    purely 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  267 

scientific  judgments  of  fact  and  trutli,  and  both  gives  the  plie- 
uomenon  greater  complexity  and  endows  it  with  greater  power 
than  mere  knowledge.  It  is  the  first  condition  of  its  influence 
on  the  will,  and  distinguishes  morality  from  the  satisfaction  of 
truth,  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  the  feeling  of  beauty  on  the 
other.  Science  and  art  have  their  own  emotional  accompani- 
ments, but  they  are  different  in  their  quality  from  those  of 
morality,  at  least  in  respect  of  the  object  which  awakens  them. 
The  emotional  aspect  of  conscience  is  social  and  personal, 
directed  to  the  value  of  man  as  a  personal  being,  while  that  of 
science  and  art  is  impersonal,  directed  to  truth  and  beauty  as 
objects  of  contemplation.  The  feeling  of  right  and  wrong  is 
thus  connected  with  jjersonal  uvrth,  whether  in  self  or  others, 
and  respects  all  conditions  affecting  that  worth.  It  shows  itself 
in  a  variety  of  ways  and  relations,  now  in  the  contemjilation  of 
actions  and  ideals  still  to  be  realized,  now  in  the  contemplation 
of  actions  already  performed,  and  again  as  an  impulsive  feeling 
in  the  direction  of  approved  actions.  But  we  can  resolve  them 
into  two  general  kinds,  the  judicial  and  the  legislative  functions 
of  conscience. 

1.  The  Judicial  Feelings. — These  represent  the  mental 
verdict  pronounced  upon  the  character  of  conduct,  the  judgment 
of  its  Avorthiness  or  unworthiness.  It  is  illustrated  when  we 
look  at  an  act  of  honesty  or  contemplate  it  as  beautiful  or  good, 
approving  of  it  as  an  object  of  will.  The  mental  satisfaction  or 
tone  of  elevation  felt  when  planning  a  course  of  virtue,  or  ex- 
horting it  upon  others,  is  another  illustration  of  it,  and  it  is 
again  prominent  in  looking  back  upon  actions  already  per- 
formed. Hence  these  feelings  may  take  two  forms,  the  inospec- 
tive  and  the  retrospective.  The  prospective  are  the  reflexes  of 
what  appears  as  ideal  and  moral  to  us,  the  sense  of  rightness 
and  wrongness  antecedent  to  a  volition,  the  approval  and  dis- 
approval of  possible  acts.  The  retrospective  are  the  same  feel- 
ings after  the  act,  the  satisfaction  and  dissatisfaction  in  regard 
to  conduct  already  realized.  They  are  especially  prominent  in 
the  elevated  feeling  of  self-approval,  or  consciousness  of  recti- 


268  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

tude,  and  the  opposite  feelings  of  remorse,  penitence,  self-con- 
demnation, grief  for  wrongdoing,  etc.  It  is  in  these  feelings 
that  we  get  the  most  distinct  evidence  of  personal  responsibility, 
inasmuch  as  we  cannot  produce  or  prevent  the  volitions  of 
others.  AVe  can  only  approve  or  condemn  them.  But  where 
the  satisfaction  for  righteousness  and  dissatisfaction  for  sin,  or 
self-approval  and  self-condemnation,  appear  we  have  distinct 
traces  of  conscience  or  a  feeling  of  more  than  mere  prudence 
and  interest  in  the  results  involved.  This  is  the  reason  that 
conscience  has  so  often  been  identified  with  the  retrospective 
emotions.  But  it  is  just  as  much  evident  in  the  prospective 
which  serve  to  give  motive  power  or  efficiency  to  the  cognition 
of  virtue  and  to  eliminate  or  inhibit  it  in  the  case  of  vice. 

2.  The  Legislative  Feeling. — This  is  also  a  prospective 
emotion  in  the  sense  that  it  usually  antccedes  volition.  But  it  is 
not  of  the  nature  of  approval  or  disappi'oval.  It  is  rather  an 
injunctive  or  imperative  feeling,  the  sense  of  constraint  or  neces- 
sity which  the  idea  of  duty  expresses,  and  rej^resents  a  sort  of 
sovereignty  over  the  unregulated  and  irrational  impulses  of  the 
subject.  It  is  the  most  important  and  distinctive  of  all  the  ele- 
ments of  conscience.  It  is  this  which  Kant  exj)ressed  by  the 
"categorical  im[)crative,"  a  sense  of  unconditional  obligation 
which  allows  no  liberty  to  the  will  in  the  pursuit  of  desire, 
and  wlierever  it  exists  it  excludes  all  other  alternatives  of 
legitimate  dioice.  It  is  the  moral  law  issuing  its  commands, 
and  exacts  either  unconditional  obedience  or  the  acceptance 
of  the  consequences  of  disobedience.  Where  it  is  present  the 
highest  degree  of  responsibility  is  possible,  assuming  that  the 
right  and  wrong  are  known  correctly.  It  is  not  necessary  to  con- 
ceive tliis  sense  of  duty  as  essentially  in  conflict  with  desire.  It 
may  be  in  perfect  conformity  with  it.  But  it  expresses  neverthe- 
le3.s  the  feeling  of  necessity  attaching  to  the  conduct  commended 
by  conscience  as  ideal  and  imj)cr:itive.  It  merely  indicates  that 
the  moral  law  can  ol)tain  satisfaction  in  no  other  way.  Though 
it  docs  not  necessarily  conflict  with  the  desires,  it  keej)S  them  in 
8ubordii)atii)M   to  its    own   end,   ;uid  sets  tlicm  aside  only   when 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  2G9 

they  fail  to  conduce  to  the  same  object  or  purpose.  Hence 
it  may  be  opposed  to  them,  though  not  always.  It  is  the  ele- 
ment which  gives  moral  quality  to  the  act»  while  the  other 
elements  serve  more  as  guides  to  the  right  choice  of  ends.  They 
insure  knowledge  and  feeling  of  what  is  right,  the  sense  of  the 
imperative  exercises  more  motive  efficiency  in  the  firmness  of  its 
demand  upon  the  will.  It  is  most  distinctly  the  moral  as 
compared  with  the  intellectual  element  of  conscience  and  lies 
very  closely  to  the  will  in  its  function  and  importance. 

3d.  The  Desiderative  Element — The  element  of  conscience 
which  comes  nearest  to  containing  the  will,  and  which  certainly 
interpenetrates  its  functions,  is  the  desiderative  or  element  of  de- 
sire. It  is  very  closely  related  to  the  legislative.  Indeed,  the  two 
merge  into  each  other.  But  the  desiderative  function  is  not  dis- 
tinctly marked  by  constraint  and  excludes  all  conscious  conflict 
with  lower  desires.  It  represents  an  ideal  which  conflicts  with 
the  exclusive  gratification  of  such  desires  as  avarice,  voluptuous- 
ness, lust,  inordinate  appetites,  selfish  ambition,  etc.,  but  it  does 
not  feel  their  competition.  In  this  relation  and  function  it  is  it- 
self a  predominant  desire  sanctified  and  transfigured  by  a  tone 
of  solemnity  and  self-consciousness  which  gives  it  all  the  force  of 
a  command,  and  indeed  often  involves  it.  It  takes  the  various 
forms  of  reverence,  conscientiousness,  and  good-will;  of  reverence 
when  it  is  religious,  or  respect  for  God,  of  conscientiousness  when 
it  is  respect  for  law  or  virtue,  and  of  good-will  when  it  is  re- 
spect for  man.  This  element  of  conscience  expresses  less  constraint, 
or  may  even  be  devoid  of  it,  than  unconditional  obligation,  but 
only  because  it  does  not  imply  a  conflict  wuth  competing  inclina- 
tions. It  therefore  represents  the  highest  development  of  con- 
science, and  represents  the  feeling  of  what  is  imperative  without 
the  temptations  which  consti'aint  has  to  overcome.  It  is  illus- 
trated in  the  person  who  does  his  duty  because  he  loves  it,  and 
who  does  not  desire  any  other  course  of  action.  This  aspect  of 
conscience  only  needs  enlightenment  in  order  to  secure  freedom 
from  error,  while  duty  in  competition  with  desire  and  interest 
requires  strength  in  addition  to  enlightenment. 


270  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

The  various  elements  r^coguized  in  this  analysis  of  conscience 
show  that  it  is  a  very  complex  organ  as  defined  in  the  present 
treatise.  Every  one  is,  of  course,  at  liberty  to  limit  it  to  any  one 
of  the  elements,  but  in  so  doing  he  should  not  quarrel  with  common 
sense  and  usage  which  has  made  no  attempt  to  confine  its  appli- 
cation. If  any  contradiction  be  asserted  of  it  after  so  limiting 
the  term,  it  is  a  contradiction  of  the  philosopher's  own  making, 
because  he  has  arbitrarily  chosen  to  give  it  a  restricted  applica- 
cation,  and  then  imagined  that  some  other  usage  of  common  life 
reflects  an  inconsistency,  when  the  fact  is  that  the  conception  is  a 
general  one,  including  many  elements.  No  doubt  it  would 
conduce  to  philosophic  simplicity  if  we  could  adopt  but  a  single 
conception  for  the  term  ;  but  Avhile  this  might  eliminate  some 
questions  connected  with  conscience  in  common  life,  it  would  onlv 
create  the  need  of  other  terms  to  denote  either  our  moral  nature 
as  a  whole  or  the  various  elements  composing  it.  But  it  seems 
best  to  the  present  author  to  use  the  term  to  express  the  whole 
of  our  moral  functions,  except  the  initiative  acts  or  choice  and 
volition,  and  in  this  way  we  can  best  comprehend  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,  and  reconcile  the  many  controversies  that  in  reality 
center  about  different  instead  of  the  same  meanings- of  the  term. 
If  conscience  can  l^e  a  comprehensive  term  for  several  elements 
and  functions  of  moral  consciousness,  it  affljrds  a  point  of  indiflfer- 
ence  for  all  tlie  questions  involved  in  traditional  discussions, 
while  it  permits  the  separation  of  individual  problems  from  a 
connection  which  it  is  wrong  to  suppose  they  possess.  AVith 
thirf  fact  in  view  we  can  take  up  some  of  these  problems  under  the 
functions  of  conscience. 

IV.  THE  FUXCTIOXS  OF  CONSCIENCE.— ^y  the  functions 
of  conscience,  as  distinct  from  its  elements,  we  mean  what  it  does 
rather  tliaii  what  it  'is  in  life.  The  two  facts  are  closely  related, 
but  tlii-  topic  intends  to  express  what  it  does  as  a  %ohole,  rather 
than  what  any  of  its  si)ecific  elements  may  do.  Each  one  of 
tliese  elements  will  have  its  own  psycliological  and  moral  func- 
tion or  influence,  l)ut  will  not  rejjresent  the  faculty  as  a  whole. 
We  have  now  to  see  what  cunscieuce,  as  the  sum  or  complex  of 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  271 

these  elements,  effects  for  the  organization  of  conduct  in  the  direc- 
tion of  morality.  We  shall  recognize  three  functions,  namely, 
motivation,  authority,  and  moralization. 

1st.  Motivation. — The  fact  that  conscience  may  furnish  a  mo- 
tive to  the  will  has  already  been  indicated  in  the  discussion  about 
motives.  We  require  at  present  simply  to  examine  the  oft-dis- 
cussed relation  between  conscience  and  desire,  as  motives  to  voli- 
tion. We  accept  as  admitted  the  fact  that  conscience  can  move 
the  will,  or  is  a  capacity  which  indicates  the  direction  of  volition 
when  that  capacity  is  properly  active.  But  it  is  a  question 
whether  its  motivation  is  opposed  to  or  independent  of  desire.' 
]Many  conceive  conscience  as  in  conflict  with  natural  desire,  and 
thus  set  it  up  as  the  only  process  of  moral  motivation,  and  more 
distinctly  imply  or  assert  that  moral  action  can  occur  only  when 
there  is  the  sense  of  conflict  or  struggle  with  natural  impulses. 
Others,  again,  hold  that  conscience  cannot  be  stronger  than  desire. 

There  are  several  differences  between  the  two  which  should 
always  be  kept  in  mind.  First,  desire  is  indifferent  to  either  the 
good  or  the  bad  ;  it  may  include  both  good  and  bad  incHnations. 
It  expresses  only  inclination  for  an  object,  and  does  not  distin- 
guish the  kind  of  inclination.  Thus  it  is  a  name  for  the  love  of 
vice,  of  ambition,  of  wealth,  of  power,  of  goodness,  and  of  any  crav- 
ing whatever  which  is  a  natural  prompting  of  the  individual. 
On  the  other  hand,  conscience  is  not  indifferent  to  the  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong.  It  means  always  to  express  a  direc- 
tion'of  the  mind  toward  the  good,  whether  it  is  successful  in  at- 
taining it  or  not.  In  the  second  place,  desire  is  a  name  for 
spontaneous  cravings,  as  opposed  to  the  deliberative  and  self-con- 
scious activity  of  conscience.  Desire  is  called  natural  iii  that  it 
is  supposed  to  be  an  organic  craving  for  some  satisfaction,  and 
its  object  has  usually  been  regarded  as  pleasure,  while  conscience 
is  treated  as  moral  and  with  virtue  as  its  object.  The  third 
difference  is  found  in  the  limitation  of  desire  to  the  lower  orsauic 
impulses  which  arise  in  consciousness  without  any  purposive 
effort,  while  conscience,  with  its  deliberative  and  self-conscious 
action,  is  distinguished  by  rational  consciousness  of  its  end,  and 


272  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

desire  primarily  is  not,  though  wc  afterward  l)ecome  conscious  of 
the  meaning  that  its  cravings  express,  and  at  once  associate  it 
with  their  occurrence. 

It  is  important  always  to  take  these  differences  of  import  and 
implication  into  account  when  discussing  their  relation,  but  we 
should  not  confuse  them  with  the  idea  of  their  opposition. 
Conscience  is  not  in  its  nature  opposed  to  desire  at  large.  It  is 
opposed  only  to  the  wicked  desires  as  good  is  opposed  to  bad. 
It  represents  itself  an  inclination,  or  the  conscious  want  and  de- 
mand for  a  good  of  some  kind,  even  when  it  has  to  struggle  with 
"some  other  desire.  In  its  character  of  a  motive,  therefore,  it  is 
desiderative  in  its  nature,  and  the  conflict  between  it  and  desire, 
which  is  so  often  made  absolute,  is  nothing  more  than  the  con- 
flict between  good  and  bad  desires,  conscience  being  a  name  for 
the  former.  Moreover,  in  the  contrast  between  lower  and 
hisher  desires  conscience  is  the  name  for  the  higher.  But  this 
is  a  difference  in  quality  rather  than  in  the  function  of  motivation, 
so  far  as  desire  moves  the  will  at  all,  and  hence  we  are  mainly 
concerned  with  this  function.  This  is  to  say,  that  the  distinction 
between  them  is  moral,  not  j).sychologicaI.  It  is  well  to  remark  also 
that  the  term  desire  is  not  always  consistent  in  either  common 
or  philosophic  usage.  It  sometimes  denotes  a  natural  or  spon- 
taneous craving  of  the  organism,  such  as  hunger,  thirst,  and 
sex,  which,  as  a  state  of  the  body  or  mind,  is  not  at  first  con- 
scious of  its  object.  Then  again  it  denotes  every  conscious  ^lik- 
ing for  an  object  and  will  include  such  promptings  to  action  as 
voluptuousness,  malice,  love  of  wealth,  of  fame,  of  power,  affec- 
tion, parental,  filial,  and  social,  and  every  inclination  that  seeks 
some  sa'tisfaction  in  attaining  an  end.  It  is  only  the  first  of 
these  that  can  in  any  way  be  opposed  to  conscience,  which  is 
not  only  conscious  of  its  end,  but  is  reflective  and  rational. 
But  then  such  desires  as  the  first  class  are  not  properly  motives 
to  volition  at  all,  inasmuch  as  they  can  only  give  rise  to  reflex 
actions,  until  consciousness  and  purpose  are  superimposed  upon 
them  to  discover  and  direct  to  the  end  to  which  they,  as  blind 
cravings,  seem   to  ])oint.     But   in  tlic  wider  sense  of  conscious 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  273 

desire,  aware  of  its  end,  conscience  is  not  opposed  to  it  in  princi- 
ple. It  is  only  a  name  for  one  class  of  such  desires.  In  this 
wider  application  there  can  be  as  much  conflict  between  desires 
as  is  supposed  to  exist  between  conscience  and  desire,  and  in 
fact  conscience  in  this  relation  is  but  a  name  for  the  desire  that 
should  prevail.  Thus  we  solve  the  vexed  question  about  the 
relation  between  duty  and  interest,  which  are  often  supposed  to 
be  in  irreconcilable  antagonism.  It  assumes  that  virtue  is  not 
possible  without  feeling  the  sense  of  duty  and  its  antagonism  to 
prudence  and  interest.  The  fact  is  that  the  constraint  of  duty 
is  the  same  as  the  constraint  felt  in  the  conflict  between  two 
desires,  as  between  the  love  of  wealth  and  the  love  of  a  spend- 
thrift's pleasures,  and  hence,  as  constraint,  can  be  felt  as  much 
in  matters  of  prudence  as  in  matters  of  virtue.  The  only 
difference  is  that  duty  expresses  the  constraint  of  the  desires 
that  are  not  morally  indifferent  in  their  nature.  It  is  thus  not 
opposed  to  interest  of  every  kind,  but  may  coincide  with  the 
interest  of  the  highest  kind,  or  with  an  end  which  may  concern 
us  as  an  interest  if  we  would  only  see  it  so. 

In  its  relation  to  the  will,  therefore,  conscience  is  like  desire 
of  the  conscious  sort.  It  affords  motivation  and  can  differ  from 
it  only  in  the  quality  which  it  expresses  and  the  right  of  superi- 
ority. It  is  simply  a  desire  with  the  notion  of  reflection  and 
control  added  to  it  in  the  interest  of  harmonious  development,  and 
the  realization  of  an  end  higher  than  mere  instinct  or  that  which 
the  love  of  unregulated  pleasure  might  produce.  The  opposition 
exists  only  where  the  contrast  between  conscience  and  desire  is 
defined  to  be  that  between  irrational  impulses  and  the  conscious 
pursuit  of  ends  under  the  sense  of  duty,  and  where  desire  is  sup- 
posed to  express  organic  and  natural  cravings  as  opposed  to  the 
constraint  which  controls  them.  But  where  desire  expresses  a 
conscious  and  developed  inclination,  an  inclination  reinforced 
and  more  or  less  rationalized  by  experience,  as  the  desire  of 
power  for  the  sake  of  benefiting  the  public,  or  the  desire  of 
knowledge  for  the  sake  of  j)crs()nal  usefulness,  there  is  no  differ- 
ence between  it  and  conscience  that  is  worth  considering,  and  so 


274  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

it  is  often  used  to  express  the  necessary  antecedent  of  any  voli- 
tion, as  indicating  that  we  could  not  will  to  realize  any  object 
without  de-siring  the  result,  even  if  the  volition  costs  the  mind  a 
severe  struggle  with  some  special  temptation.  Conscience  in  that 
sense  is  a  desire,  though  it  may  be  reasonable  to  call  it  more  at  the 
same  time.  But  it  is  not  opposed  to  desire  at  large ;  it  conflicts, 
if  it  conflicts  at  all,  only  with  some  other  particular  desire.  This 
conclusion  prepares  us  to  discuss  the  authority  of  conscience  as 
the  second  of  its  qualities  or  functions. 

2cl.  Authority. — This  characteristic  is  known  as  the  right  to 
supremacy  among  the  springs  of  conduct.  It  does  not  mean  that 
the  sense  of  duty  is  in  fact  always  the  strongest  in  man,  but  that 
it  ought  to  be,  or  has  the  right  to  the  first  place  in  the  initiation 
of  volition.  "We  must  appeal  to  it  to  know  what  is  right  and 
MTong,  and  to  make  the  right  effective  against  the  competition  of 
sin  and  vice.  If  the  reflective  character  of  conscience  and  the 
high  sense  of  duty  which  it  expresses  cannot  be  called  into  ser- 
vice, implying  the  social  rights  of  all  persons  in  the  world's 
order,  we  are  left  to  the  prey  of  a  lot  of  unregulated  impulses, 
and  hence  we  require  a  common  arbiter  of  the  claims  presented 
in  that  conflict.  Conscience  is  the  only  power  which  can  assume 
this  function.  The  right  to  this  supremacy  is  secured  on  either 
claim  as  to  its  character.  If  it  is  simply  the  highest  desire  it 
should  have  authority  on  that  ground.  If  it  be  simply  a  name 
for  the  moral  as  opposed  to  immoral  desires  its  legitimacy  is 
established  on  that  account.  If,  again,  it  be  in  conflict  with  all 
desire  and  represent  the  rational  as  opposed  to  the  irrational,  it 
may  be  weaker  than  its  competitor,  but  it  has  the  right  of 
authority. 

But  in  a.ssigning  conscience  the  attribute  of  supremacy  and 
authority  over  all  other  influences  affecting  conduct  we  must 
not  mistake  its  meaning.  It  is  not  an  external  power,  which  has 
the  right  to  coerce  the  subject  into  obedience  against  his  will,  but 
is  an  internal  source  which  is  itself  tlie  expression  of  legitinuicy 
and  right  rather  than  mere  power.  It  is  well  to  recall  the  origin 
of  the  term  autiiDrity  as  ajiplifd  to  conscience  in  order  to  see 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  275 

just  wliat  value  it  has  in  the  economy  of  morals.  "Wc  found  it 
a  contribution  of  the  reaction  against  medieval  thought  where 
the  individual  was  subject  to  the  external  authority  of  the 
church,  which  regulated  his  life  and  conduct  without  regard  to 
the  scruples  of  his  own  conscience.  The  subject  possessed  no 
liberty  or  right  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  morals.  They 
were  determined  for  him  by  an  external  authority  which  made 
his  life  merely  one  of  passive  obedience.  It  virtually  exempted 
him  from  all  personal  responsibility  for  his  actions.  But 
whether  it  intended  to  do  this  or  not,  it  certainly  expressed  the 
claim  of  an  external  power  to  authorize  what  a  man  should  and 
should  not  do.  Authority  was  thus  the  exertion  of  mere  power 
to  coerce  other  wills  into  obedience.  It  may  have  been  associated 
with  some  legitimacy  in  the  actual  duties  it  imposed,  but  it  made 
power  the  standard  of  right,  denied  the  right  of  private  judgment, 
and  dispensed  with  the  need  of  conscience  everywhere  except 
in  the  person  of  the  head  of  the  church.  The  Reformation 
reversed  all  this.  It  was  the  re-establishment  of  the  rights  of 
conscience  and  the  need  of  an  inner  guide  for  the  direction  of 
each  individual.  But  the  habit  of  appealing  to  authority  was 
strong  enough  to  demand  of  the  Protestant  some  equivalent  of  it, 
on  the  ground  that  men  differed  in  their  ideals  and  were 
depraved  in  their  desires.  His  appeal  was  then  made  to  the 
authority  of  revelation,  with  a  secondary  resort  to  conscience  as 
the  revelation  of  God  in  man.  But  when  rationalism  estab- 
lished its  claims  to  recognition  there  was  nothing  left  but  to 
make  conscience  its  own  authority,  the  final  court  of  appeal  for 
the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong.  It  was  in  this  way 
that  it  became  possessed  of  that  attribute.  But  it  is  often  for- 
gotten that  this  transfer  of  authority  from  an  external  to  an 
internal  power  deprives  it  of  all  the  meaning  and  implications 
wliich  it  possessed  before.  Such  a  thing  as  determining  the  right 
apart  from  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  upon  whom  it 
rests  as  a  duty,  and  as  coercion  against  the  will  iind  private 
judgment  of  the  subject,  is  impossible.  It  makes  the  notion  of 
authority  either  a  mere  metaphor  or  a  synonym  for  legitimacy. 


276  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

-which  latter  it  in  fact  usually  is  in  modern  parlance.  Indeed, 
outside  the  uses  of  dogmatic  religion  which  seeks  an  external  au- 
thority in  revelation  for  the  judgments  of  conscience,  or  for  the 
rules  of  life,  there  is  no  need  for  the  notion  of  authority  at  all  in 
any  other  sense  than  the  final  court  of  appeal  for  legitimacy  and 
the  right  of  supremacy.  Any  attempt  to  impart  into  it  its  old 
meaning  is  simply  an  abandonment  of  the  need  of  conscience 
and  a  resort  to  arbitrary  power  for  the  guidance  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  this  is  contrary  to  the  whole  intellectual  and  moral 
tendencies  of  modern  times.  The  authority  of  conscience,  there- 
fore, can  only  mean  for  us  that  the  sole  guide  to  the  right  can 
be  its  deliverances  instead  of  impulse,  instinct,  and  personal 
interest.  If  it  is  a  question  as  to  what  our  duty  is,  as  compared 
with  the  many  claims  made  upon  the  will,  conscience  is  the 
"  authority,"  guide,  or  court  of  appeal.  It  is  the  inner  source  of 
legitimacy,  and  if  man  is  depraved  or  fallible  we  must  seek  else- 
where for  qualities  that  Avill  avoid  these  defects.  But  if  these 
qualities  cannot  be  found,  we  have  no  resoui*ce  but  to  rely  u^wn 
the  best  authority  we  possess,  and  this  is  conscience.  Its  author- 
ity is  not  the  right  of  something  external  to  restrain,  direct,  and 
coerce  the  subject,  but  an  inner  power  which  consists  with  the 
subject's  liberty  and  puts  responsibility  where  it  ought  to  rest. 

But  scholasticism  and  many  modern  theologians  have  insisted 
that  conscience  is  a  fallible  guide,  and  that  man  needs  some 
infallible  authority  to  direct  his  life  and  conduct.  In  the  medi- 
icval  period  this  was  found  in  the  church,  and  Protestantism 
transferred  it  from  the  church  to  the  Bible,  and  I'ationalism  to 
conscience.  It  was  everywhere  assumed  that  fallible  man 
needed  an  infalliljle  guide,  and  hence  it  was  sought  outside  of 
him.  But  in  saying  that  conscience  is  infallible,  rationalism 
simply  abandoned  the  dogmatic  doctrine  that  man's  nature  was 
wholly  falliltle  and  found  in  it  conscitjusncss  and  conscience,  to 
which  it  attached  that  attribute  in  response  to  the  demand  for 
such  a  guide  to  insure  certitude,  which  wa.s  assumed  to  be  neces- 
sary for  ()l»taiiiing  obedirncc  at  all.  By  supposition  a  man  will 
not  act  until  he  is  certain  that  he  is  right  or  can  attain  his  end, 


■    THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  277 

and  as  conscience  was  asserted  to  be  f\\llil)le  by  one  party  it 
could  never  be  absolutely  assured  of  the  correctness  of  its  judg- 
ments and  the  subject  could  not  act  for  fear  of  doing  wrong. 
This  was  the  source  of  appeal  to  the  church  or  to  the  Bible  as 
an  unfailing  instrument  of  certitude.  But  giving  up  all  confi- 
dence in  these,  the  rationalist  could  only  meet  the  demand  for 
infallibility  and  certitude  by  placing  them  in  conscience  and 
facing  the  difficulties  created  by  supposing  an  infallible  author- 
ity to  be  possessed  by  a  fallible  agent. 

The  controversy  on  the  subject  has  been  hotly  waged  ever 
since.  The  religious  interests  have  asserted  the  fallibility  of 
conscience  and  supplemented  it  by  the  infallibility  of  an  exter- 
nal authority,  and  the  skeptic  not  being  satisfied  to  accept  either 
the  beliefs  of  the  theologian  or  the  paradoxes  of  the  rationalist 
has  been  content  to  deny  the  positions  of  both  of  them  and  to 
remain  in  doubt  and  incertitude  about  the  whole  question. 
Other  writers,  like  Kant,  flatly  affirmed  the  infallibility  of  con- 
science and  treated  the  belief  to  the  contrary  as  an  illusion. 
But  it  has  not  occurred  to  either  party  to  test  the  question  by 
reference  to  the  various  conceptions  of  conscience.  This  we 
may  do. 

Kant  says  that  an  erring  conscience  is  a  chimera.  This  view 
seems  to  flatly  contradict  such  facts  as  the  evident  conscientious- 
ness of  the  Hindu  mother  and  the  still  more  evident  wrong  of 
her  act  in  casting  her  child  in  the  Ganges,  or  the  case  of  the 
man  who  claims  conscientiously  to  murder  some  one  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  world.  Men  supported  slavery  conscientiously,  and 
there  is  scarcely  a  crime  which  has  not  sought  its  santification  at 
the  bar  of  conscience.  Kant,  therefore,  seems  to  have  asserted 
what  no  mind  of  common  sense  can  admit,  namely,  that  action 
according  to  the  dictates  of  conscience  can  never  be  wrong. 
Nothing  would  seem  clearer  in  such  cases  than  the  claim  that 
we  need  some  other  guide  than  conscience  to  keep  us  from  com- 
mitting crimes  under  its  sanction,  and  hence  Kant's  view  has 
been  the  object  of  ridicule  by  all  who  have  felt  that  ajjproval 
and  self-satisfaction  obtained  in  this  way  were  dangerous  to  mo- 


278  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

rality.  But  criticism  of  this  kind  against  Kant  wholly  mistakes 
his  conception  of  conscience  and  that  of  those  who  agree  with 
him,  and  it  fails  to  see  that  his  doctrine  eithor  does  not  apply  to 
such  illustrations  as  have  been  mentioned,  or  does  not  mean  to 
supply  the  desideratum  which  is  demanded  in  order  to  secure 
coincidence  between  conscientiousness  and  good  conduct.  Now, 
Kant's  view  of  conscience  did  not  include  intellectual  and  moral 
judgment  in  it.  Its  sole  contents  were  the  "  categorical  impera- 
tive "  or  the  sense  of  duty,  and  morality  did  not  extend  beyond 
the  good-will.  His  conception  of  morality  did  not  contain  re- 
sponsibility for  the  character  of  any  results  outside  of  the  inten- 
tion of  the  subject.  It  consisted  only  in  the  right  motive.  Any 
man  who  acted  according  to  this  did  his  full  duty.  Morality 
aims,  Kant  held,  in  entire  consonance  with  the  traditional  prin- 
ciple of  Christianity,  at  the  regeneration  of  the  will,  and  all  that 
is  needed  for  this  is  action  according  to  the  categorical  impera- 
tive, which  an  ignorant  man  can  do  as  well  as  the  wise  man. 
He  was  good,  and  did  all  that  the  moral  law  could  demand  of 
him,  who  obeyed  the  sense  of  duty  whatever  the  consequences. 
We  may  not  agree  that  this  is  the  wholly  correct  view  of  the 
case,  but  if  it  be  advanced  we  can  judge  of  it  only  according  to 
the  standard  of  consistency,  and  Kant  was  perfectly  consistent 
in  asserting  infallibility  of  conscience  and  limiting  morality  to 
motives.  He  may  be  wrong,  both  in  his  conception  of  morality 
and  in  "supposing  that  infallibility  is  the  correct  description  of  a 
function  whose  sole  character  is  emotional,  but  he  cannot  be  im- 
peached from  the  standpoint  of  a  dificreut  conception  of  morality 
and  of  conscience.  Hence  he  could  say  of  the  Hindu  mother 
that  she  was  quite  as  moral  as  one  whose  aftcction  for  her  child 
made  her  revolt  against  taking  its  life  ;  tliat  the  man  who  com- 
mitted murder  conscientiously  was  as  good  morally  as  the  man 
who  respected  human  life.  Where  morality  is  merely  a  matter 
of  good-will  or  intentions  the  consequences  arc  irrelevant  to  the 
case.  Of  course,  so  blank  a  statement  will  only  reveal  the  de- 
fects of  a  doctrine  which  docs  so  much  violence  to  the  common 
notion  of  morality,  but  it  cannot  be  charged  with  inconsistency. 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  279 

In  Kant's  view,  conscience  was  purely  an  emotional  function  and 
was  not  intended  to  sanctify  anything  but  the  will  or  intention 
which  it  expressed,  and  hence  the  very  definition  of  it,  as  the 
highest  desire,  or  the  power  superior  to  desire,  the  name  for  the 
goodness  of  the  mind's  impulses,  made  it  necessarily  ineri'ant,  if 
we  may  use  that  term.  All  action,  subjectively  considered,  must 
be  good,  which  conscience  expresses  or  motivates.  We  can 
invariably  trust  it  for  being  right  as  compared  with  non- 
conscientious  motives,  though  the  only  righteousness  which  it 
covers  is  that  of  character. 

But  it  is  pertinent  to  remark  that  the  term  "  infallibility  "  is 
not  the  proper  one  to  describe  an  emotional  function.  It  can 
describe  nothing  but  an  unfailingly  correct  connection  between 
ideas  and  things.  Thus  my  perception  would  be  infallible  if 
every  time  that  it  had  a  sensation  of  color  it  was  correct  as  to 
the  character  of  the  substance  from  which  it  came.  Again,  I 
should  be  infallible  if  judgment  as  to  the  morrow's  Aveather  coin- 
cided vnih  the  fact  of  it  when  it  came.  A  machine  is  infallible 
in  the  sense  that  it  acts  without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turn- 
ing. But  the  term  is  applied  in  this  case  probably  only  as  a 
metaphor.  It  properly  implies  the  correctness  of  judgment 
regarding  the  occurrence  of  events  or  the  existence  of  facts 
beyond  the  production  of  the  subject.  Hence  fallibility  or 
infallibility  can  properly  apply  only  to  intellectual  functions, 
and  not  to  emotional,  which  are  either  mere  reflexes  of  con- 
sciousness or  are  expressions  of  the  character  of  the  will.  What 
is  intended  by  Kant  in  describing  conscience  as  infallible  may 
be  admitted,  and  this  is  the  absolute  reliance  we  can  place  upon 
it  for  satisfying  the  demands  of  the  moral  law,  subjectively 
considered,  namely,  that  we  always  act  conscientiously,  and  that 
no  other  action  can  have  moral  character  apart  from  its  con- 
sequences. Or,  put  in  another  form,  no  agent  can  be  moral  who 
does  not  respect  the  law  of  conscientiousness,  good-will,  or  the 
categorical  imperative.  Conscience  may  always  be  right  in 
this  sense  and  so  be  entitled  to  unfailing  reliance  as  a  guide 
to  internal  righteousness.     But  infallibility  can   be  applied  to 


280  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

it  onlv  by  sufferance  and  on  condition  tliat  it  does  not  mean 
■\vbat  it  denotes  when  applied  to  judgment. 

But  the  very  revolt  of  the  mind  against  Kant's  paradox  is  tes- 
timonv  to  the  foct  that  the  general  conception  of  conscience  is 
broader  than  his  and  includes  intellectual  functions  as  well  as 
emotional.  The  common  notion  of  morality,  as  we  have  seen  in 
analyzing  it,  includes  both  motives  and  consequences,  subjective 
and  objective  elements,  and  makes  it  necessary  to  secure  perfect 
uniformity  of  connection  between  the  one  and  the  other  in  order 
that  any  claim  to  infallibility  may  be  sustained.  But  wherever 
intellectual  functions  are  involved  it  is  known  that  the  mind  is 
exposed  to  error  both  from  illusions  of  percej)tion  and  falla- 
cies of  reasoning,  so  that  conscience,  if  it  contains  cognitive  ele- 
ments, must  be  exposed  to  error.  As  we  have  defined  it,  con- 
science contains  just  those  elements  which  expose  it  to  error 
and  which  are  the  elements  most  directly  connected  or  concerned 
with  objective  facts.  To  be  objectively  correct  in  our  conduct, 
to  attain  the  good  or  results  which  constitute  the  goodness  of  the 
external  order  of  the  world,  the  conditions  most  conservative  of 
human  welfare  and  development,  intellectual  and  moral  judg- 
ment is  required,  which  is  quite  distinct  in  its  nature  and  quali- 
fications from  the  sense  of  duty  and  good-will.  It  is  liable  to 
error,  and  must  make  that  fallible  of  which  it  is  a  part.  Hence 
wherever  conscience  is  conceived  as  intellectual,  or  as  containing 
intellectual  elements,  it  must  be  admitted  to  be  fallible. 

But  the  criticism  of  this  conclusion  will  always  be  that  we 
cannot  safely  follow  a  guide  which  is  so  liable  to  error,  and 
hence  must  require  some  infallible  autliority  to  secure  coi'rect 
conduct.  All  that  it  is  necessary  to  say  in  reply  to  this  claim 
is  that  it  is  not  true.  There  is  a  natural  temptation  to  make  this 
claim,  but  it  is  one  which  is  made  nowhere  except  in  speculative 
philosophy.  Conscience  is  fallible,  but  it  may  l)e  the  only  guide 
wc  have,  and  if  it  be  not  fidlowed  we  must  either  be  inert 
or  without  any  q\ialitles  of  virtue  at  all.  If  wc  cannot  secure 
an  infallible  authority  in  a  revelation  or  some  qualified  agents 
deputed    for   the   purpose,  we  must  be  content  to  accept  such 


THE  NATURE  OF  CONSCIENCE  281 

guidance  as  we  have,  whether  fallible  or  infallible.    INIoreover,  we 
do  not  demand  infallibility  of  judgment  in  any  other  affairs  of 
life  and  yet  we  act  as  promptly  as  we  should  mih  it,  accepting 
the  consequences  of  error  and  generally  attaining  a  reasonable 
amount  of  success.     We  transact  business  and  undertake  all  the 
various   risks  of  life   and  yet  never  ask  to  have  an  infallible 
judgment  before  acting.     Experience  shows  us  that  we  are  often 
enough  correct  to  enable  us  to  follow  securely  such  guidance  as 
we  have,  and  though  this  may  be  fallible,  action  is  not  paralyzed 
by  it.     It  is  the  same  with  conscience.     It  might  be  a  great 
advantage  to  have  its  judgments  free  from  error,  so  far  as  objec- 
tive consequences  beyond  the  ken  of  knowledge  are  concerned, 
but  since  its  responsibilities  do  not  extend  beyond  good-will  and 
such  consequences  as  experience  reveals,  it  is  not  hindered  from 
being  a  safe  guide.     Infallibility  is  not  required  in  order  either 
to  insure  action  or  to  secure  the  first  object  of  moral  law,  which 
is  good-will  or  personal  righteousness      Obedience  to  the  emo- 
tional dictates  of  conscience  attains  this,  and  we  may  leave  to 
insight,  education,  and  experience  the  task  of  strengthening  the 
judgment  against  error,  responsibility  for  character  being  ful- 
filled by  obedience  to  the  moral  law  whatever  the  consequences 
beyond  the  ken  of  knowledge.     Hence,  while  admitting  the  falli- 
bility of  conscience  in  its  intellectual  resources,  we  may  insist 
upon  the  inviolability  of  its  emotional  functions.     In  fact,  this  is 
the  quality  we  should  properly  attribute  to  it  rather  than  in- 
fallibility.    This  last  is  neither  true  nor  necessary,  while  invio- 
lability is  both,  and  expresses  the  impossibility  of  satisfying  the 
claims   of  virtue  until  conscience  as  a  categorical  imperative 
is  accepted  and  obeyed.     We  may  without  it  do  what  is  right  in 
the  same  sense  that  a  machine  or  an  animal,  or  a  merely  prudent 
man,  may  do  that  which  is  objectively  good,  affecting  the  condi- 
tions of  life ;  but  it  will  not  be  morality  of  the  highest  sort,  and 
in  the  su1)jective  sense  it  will  not  be  morality  at  all.     Hence  in 
the  effort  to  attain  virtue  as  an  expression  of  the  agent's  moral 
character,  conscience   must   be  inviolal)le  and  its  authority  iu 
that  sense  accepted  beyond  question.     Had  moralists  presented 


282  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

this  as  its  quality  rather  than  iufallibility  there  would  have  been 
less  dispute  about  its  nature  and  relation  to  morality.  It  is 
necessary  only  to  insist  upon  its  supremacy  in  order  to  secure  it 
the  proper  place  in  the  direction  of  life,  and  we  can  then  dismiss 
the  question  of  its  follibility  or  infallibility  as  not  being  relevant 
to  the  issue.  Supremacy  and  inviolability  secure  the  quality  that 
entitles  it  to  the  first  place  among  the  motives  to  conduct,  and 
that  is  all  that  we  should  require  of  it.  The  next  function  of 
conscience  which  follows  from  this  is  raoralization. 

3d.  Moralization  — What  is  meant  by  this  function  of  con- 
science has  2:»ractically  been  indicated  in  the  discussion  immediately 
preceding.  The  only  object  in  asserting  the  authority  of  conscience 
is  to  give  the  source  from  which  truly  moral  conduct  must  come. 
Objective  morality  is,  of  course,  not  concerned  with  it  except  as 
experience  and  knowledge  may  extend  the  range  of  respon- 
sibility. But  subjective  morality  is  conditioned  by  the  presence 
and  exercise  of  conscience  as  the  sense  of  right  or  of  those 
characteristics  supposed  to  determine  the  good-will.  No  agent 
can  be  moral  without  it.  Not  only  can  conscience  serve  to  mo- 
tivate volition  as  a  competitor  of  other  impulses,  but  it  deter- 
mines the  quality  of  that  volition.  In  other  words,  it  moralizes 
conduct  within  the  limits  of  knowledge  and  of  the  Avill.  The 
individual  who  respects  it  reaches  the  highest  degree  of  personal 
worth  possible  for  him.  He  may  be  defective  in  the  knowledge 
of  circumstances  and  thus  commit  many  grave  erroi"S.  But  he 
deserves  all  the  credit  of  a  good  will  and  intentions,  so  that  if 
anything  be  wanted  to  improve  his  conduct  it  must  be  supplied 
by  education  of  the  intellect  and  not  by  discipline  of  the  will.  It 
is  the  character  of  law  and  a  fixed  rule  of  action  which  it  gives, 
while  it  enables  us  to  place  more  reliance  upon  the  person  who 
possesses  it.  It  is  the  principle  which  will  make  sacrifices  for  social 
order  and  resist  the  undue  influences  and  temptations  of  envi- 
ronment to  pursue  self-interest,  and  in  every  way  insures  the 
highest  ideals,  so  that  wherever  there  are  varied  conditions  to 
take  account  of,  there  nnist  be  either  the  constraint  of  duty  or 
the  reverence  for  a  moral  ideal  in  order  to  give  conduct  that 


THE  NATURE  OF  COXSCIEXCE  283 

moral  quality  which  Ethics  seeks  to  explain  aud  to  Piicourage. 
Conscience  is  thus  the  primary  condition  of  moralizing  man, 
partly  as  the  repository  of  principles  which  may  counteract  the 
influence  of  bad  instincts  and  desires,  and  partly  as  the  source 
of  moral  ideals  that  sanctify  the  will  whether  it  is  exposed  to 
temptation  or  not.  It  is  the  conscientious  man  tjjat  approaches 
perfection,  or  serves  as  a  personal  embodiment"  of  virtue,  con- 
science being  the  faculty  which  conditions  and  moralizes  the 
character  of  his  life  as  ideal  and  divine.  In  other  words,  it  is 
the  transfiguring  force  in  conduct,  and  determines  all  that  is 
described  by  ethical  merit. 

References. — Mackenzie  :  Manual  of  Ethics,  pp.  52-57  ;  Muirhead  : 
Elements  of  Ethics,  pp.  70-78;  Alexander:  Moral  Order  and  Progress, 
pp.  156-160;  Fowler  and  Wilson:  Principles  of  Morals,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  180- 
224,  274-285  ;  Martineau :  Study  of  Eeligion,  Vol.  II.,  Book  II.,  Chap- 
ter II.,  Section  3 ;  Seat  of  Authority  in  Eeligion,  pp.  76-79  ;  Calderwood : 
Handbook  of  Moral  Philosophy,  pp.  64-91  (Fourteenth  Edition);  Maurice: 
On  Conscience ;  Leslie  Stephen :  Science  of  Ethics,  Chapter  VIII.,  pp. 
311-352  ;  Barratt:  Physical  Ethics,  Part  II.,  Chapter  I.,  Section  1 ;  Mar- 
tensen :  Christian  Ethics,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  356-368  ;  Smyth,  Christian  Ethics, 
Pait  II.,  Chapter  I.,  pp.  293-326;  Baiu  :  Emotions  and  the  Will;  The 
Emotions,  Chapter  XV.,  pp.  268-293;  Porter:  Elements  of  Moral  Science, 
pp.  243-259. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   ORIGIX   OF    CONSCIENCE. 

J.  INTRODUCTOBY. — From  the  earliest  period  of  philosophic 
reflection  the  question  how  we  came  to  have  moral  ideas  has 
been  a  disputed  one.  We  found  in  the  history  of  ethical  prob- 
lems that  they  were  first  referred  to  the  gods  and  then  to  con- 
vention and  afterward  to  reason.  In  modern  times  the  theory 
of  evolution  took  up  the  question  with  a  new  method  and  has 
almost  absorbed  ethical  speculation  in  the  enthusiasm  of  its 
method  and  discoveries.  It  has  been  usual  since  its  introduction 
to  try  to  determine  the  nature  of  conscience  from  its  origin. 
But  apart  from  the  equivocal  import  of  the  term  origin,  which 
we  shall  note  again,  it  is  most  important  to  keep  in  mind  that 
the  proper  order  of  procedure  is  first  to  determine  its  nature  and 
then  to  discuss  its  origin.  If  men  could  only  be  brought  to  see 
it,  they  would  acknowledge  that  it  is  essentially  absurd  to  inves- 
tigate the  origin  of  anything  until  they  have  decided  its  nature. 
It  is  probably  assumed  by  most  persons  that  the  conception  ox 
conscience  is  clear  and  well  understood.  If  this  were  so  we 
might  well  proceed  to  discuss  its  origin.  But  the  previous  chap- 
ter shows  very  clearly  that  this  assumption  is  an  illusion  and 
that  every  theory  of  its  origin  must  take  account  of  a  very  com- 
plex set  of  phenomena.  We  require,  therefore,  first  to  know 
exactly  what  it  is  wliose  origin  we  are  seeking.  Having  deter- 
mined that,  we  can  proceed  to  the  problem  of  evolution. 

The  method  of  procedure  to  be  here  adopted  will  involve  a 
clear  conception  of  the  theories  regarding  the  origin  of  conscience 
and  a  criticism  of  some  current  forms  of  evolution,  which  will 
be  followed  by  an  analysis  of  the  proper  conception  of  evolution. 
We  sbull  first  cla.'^sify  the  the(n-ics  regarding  the  way  man  came 

284 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  285 

to  have  such  a  faculty.  We  shall  not  distinguish  at  first  the 
transcendental  from  the  phenomenal  use  of  the  term,  but  shall 
find  before  reaching  our  conclusion  that  one  set  of  theories 
applies  to  the  former  and  tlie  other  to  the  latter  conception  of  it. 
Let  us  see  in  how  many  ways  the  problem  may  be  viewed. 

IL  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THEORIES.— There  have  been  two 
general  theories  in  regard  to  the  origin  or  existence  of  conscience. 
One  of  them  is  called  Xativism  and  the  other  Empiricism.  The 
former  opposes  the  latter  as  natural  opposes  acquired.  The  full 
meaning  of  each  theory  will  be  brought  out  by  farther  definition 
and  analysis. 

1st.  Nativism. — In  its  broad  sense  this  theory  regards  con- 
science as  a  naturahendowment  of  man.  It  does  not  wholly  ex- 
clude the  idea  that  it  had  an  origin,  but  it  does  not  admit  that  it 
has  originated  by  human  experience.  It  holds  that  it  is  as  old, 
or  coeval  with  the  creation  of  the  individual ;  that  it  is  as  much  a 
natural  j^art  of  his  constitution,  organic  or  mental,  as  is  his  rea- 
son, his  memory,  or  his  emotions,  although  it  may  not  give  clear 
evidence  of  its  existence  until  long  after  other  faculties  have 
manifested  themselves.  But  it  takes  three  forms — Theism, 
Naturalism,  and  Intuitionalism. 

1.  Theism. — This  is  the  theory  which  holds  that  conscience 
has  a  divine  origin,  that  it  is  divinely  created.  It  is  nativistic 
in  holding  that  it  is  a  part  of  man's  nature  as  a  whole,  and  is  not 
produced  by  his  experience.  But  it  opposes  every  supposition 
that  it  is  either  eternal  or  a  necessary  part  of  intelligence  or  con- 
sciousness as  such.  It  conceives  that  beings  might  exist  without 
conscience.  In  fact,  it  originated  with  a  view  to  explaining  the 
difference  between  man  and  animals.  Animals  were  admitted  to 
have  at  least  a  certain  measure  of  intelligence,  and  to  that  ex- 
tent could  not  be  distinguished  in  their  nature  from  man.  It  was 
also  apparent  that  man's  moral  nature  presented  a  most  striking 
difi'ereuce  between  him  and  lower  orders  of  existence.  The  re- 
ligious mind  everywhere  seized  upon  the  fact  to  prove  that  this 
additional  factor  in  man  could  not  have  had  what  is  called  a 
natural,  as  opposed   to  a  supernatural,  origin,  and  hence  made 


286  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

this  new  and  distinguishing  (quality  a  divinely  implanted  power. 
This  view  antagonized  both  the  doctrine  of  conventionalism,  as 
expounded  by  the  Sophists,  and  the  theory  that  it  was  a  contin- 
gent product  of  experience  in  pleasure  and  pain.  One  of  its 
main  objects  was  to  give  a  religious  meaning  to  conscience,  and 
to  sustain  the  supernatural  at  the  point  where  the  character  of 
the  divine  showed  its  highest  degree  of  idealization.  But  it  was 
also  concerned  to  show  that  there  was  a  divinely  implanted 
power  in  man  which  makes  all  persons  responsible  for  their 
conduct,  while  empiricism  was  supposed  to  be  inconsistent 
with  that  idea,  on  the  ground  that  experience  was  not  the 
same  in  all  individuals,  and  so  could  not  give  rise  to  the 
same  capacity. 

2.  Naturalism. — By  this  theory  we  mean  simply  that  con- 
science is  a  strictly  natural,  as  opposed  to  a  supernatural,  endow- 
ment of  man.  It  regards  the  faculty  as  original,  but  does  not 
accord  it  any  particular  derivation  different  from  other  faculties. 
It  is  not  inconsistent  with  theism  in  all  its  asjiccts,  but  only  in  the 
one  respect,  that  it  docs  not  appeal  to  miracles  to  explain  con- 
science, unless  it  appeals  to  them  to  account  for  everything,  which 
is  in  effect  the  abandonment  of  the  supernatural  altogether.  This 
doctrine  has  not  been  widely  held.  It  merely  represents  the  atti- 
tude of  mind  which  would  not  agree  with  empiricism,  on  the  one 
hand,  nor  accept  the  miraculous  or  occasional  interference  of 
deity  in  the  course  of  things,  on  the  other. 

3.  Intuitionalism. — This  theory  is  consistent  with  both  of 
the  others,  and  is  only  opposed  to  empiricism.  Its  fundamental 
characteristic  is  that  moral  ideas  are  known  directly  and  immedi- 
ately, and  not  by  the  slow  and  precarious  process  of  experience. 
It  is  im])ortant  to  remark,  however,  that  it  does  not  concern  con- 
science transcendentally ;  that  is,  as  a  ca])acity,  but  2>henomenally ; 
that  is,  as  actual  conceptions.  It  may  assume  either  the  theistic 
or  the  naturalistic  point  of  view  in  regard  to  conscience  as  an  en- 
dowment, but  in  )(g;u(l  to  tlie  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  it  asserts 
that  they  are  universal  elements  of  rational  consciousness,  and  can 
be  immediately  known  and  perceived  by  all  persons  jjosscssing  it. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  287 

The  theory  takes  two  different  forms,  which  I  shall  call  General 
Intuitionalism  and  Particular  Intuitionalism. 

(a)  General  Intuitionalism. — This  view  holds  that  the  only 
element  of  moral  consciousness  which  is  immediately  and  uni- 
versally known  is  the  mere  distinction  between  right  and  wrong ; 
that  is,  the  consciousness  of  moral  imperatives,  or  the  general  and 
abstract  concejjtion  of  morality.  Not  that  we  are  originally  con- 
scious that  this  conception  is  abstract  and  general,  but  only  of 
an  idea  which  is  general  and  abstract.  We  must  not  misunder- 
stand the  theory  at  the  outset.  It  pretends  only  to  assert  an 
original  basis  upon  which  experience  may  work,  and  it  finds 
moral  conceptions  not  only  so  universal,  but  appearing  so  early 
in  the  life  of  the  individual  that  it  would  account  for  them  by 
supposing  an  intuitive  tendency  of  consciousness  to  make  the  dis- 
tinction between  right  and  wrong  too  early  for  experience  to 
account  for  it. 

(h)  Particular  Intuitionalism. — This  theory  goes  farther,  and 
maintains  that  man  can  intuitively  know  whoi  particular  acts 
are  right  or  wrong,  agree  or  disagree  with  the  standard  of 
morality.  That  is,  it  asserts  not  only  that  he  has  a  natural 
knowledge  of  moral  distinctions  in  general,  the  moral  as  distin- 
guished from  the  true  or  the  beautiful,  but  that  he  has  the  same 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  particular  virtues  and  vices, 
namely,  murder,  theft,  adultery,  honesty,  charity,  veracity,  respect 
for  human  life,  justice,  benevolence,  etc.  This  practically  leaves 
no  room  for  the  influence  of  experience  in  any  form,  and  is  the 
most  exaggerated  form  of  nativism  that  is  possible. 

2d.  Empiricism. — This  theory  is  based  upon  experience. 
The  name  is  taken  from  the  Greek  term  tjUTtsipitx,  which 
means  experience.  But  we  must  remark  the  ambiguity  of  the 
term  in  modern  usage.  First,  it  means  the  realization  in  con- 
sciousness of  any  fact  whatever,  as  to  have  a  sensation,  to  feel  a 
pain,  to  suffer  an  accident,  to  perceive  an  object,  or  to  have  any 
mental  state  or  occurrence  whatever.  The  second  meaning  is 
quite  difiercnt  from  the  first.  It  denotes  a  series  of  events  in 
consciousness,  with  an  increment  at    the   end  which  was  not 


288  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

fouiul  in  the  bcgiuning.  This  was  the  old  Greek  meaning  of 
the  term.  It  implied  repetition  with  the  conception  of  a  result 
when  looking  at  the  whole  which  would  not  be  suggested  by  the 
first  incident  realized.  The  two  conceptions,  therefore,  are,  first, 
of  isolated  individual  events,  and  second,  of  a  collective  series  of 
events  in  consciousness,  the  former  having  the  whole  contents  of 
the  thing  derived  in  each  event,  and  the  latter  with  aii  incre- 
ment not  contained  in  the  original  element  oj  the  series.  The 
latter  is  the  only  meaning  that  can  oppose  the  theory  to  Intui- 
tionalism or  Nativism.  Hence  empiricism  as  a  theory  denotes 
the  derivation  of  ideas  and  powers  from  elements  each  of  Avhich 
do  not  contain  the  product  as  a  whole.  It  is  even  conceived  as 
denoting  the  origin  of  something  from  that  which  does  not  con- 
tain it,  which  is  a  bolder  form  of  statement  than  the  one  we 
have  given.  But  usually  it  is  defined  as  the  theory  which  de- 
rives conscience  and  all  our  abstract  conceptions  from  experi- 
ence or  by  experience.  Thus  our  conception  of  the  sin  of  lying, 
of  cheating,  of  murder,  of  stealing,  of  cruelty,  or  of  the  virtues 
of  honesty,  of  justice,  of  truthfulness,  etc.,  is  not  known  by  the 
individual  until  he  has  been  educated  to  it  in  some  way  either 
by  the  influence  of  social  discipline  or  by  the  more  formal  pro- 
ceas  of  instruction.  He  requires  gradually  to  learn  their  char- 
acter and  relation  to  social  welfare.  This  experience,  however, 
has  l)een  supposed  to  be  of  two  kinds,  the  experience  of  the 
individual  and  tlie  experience  of  the  race.  This  gives  rise  to 
i\\()  distinct  forms  of  the  theory,  which  we  sliall  call  Experien- 
tialism  and  Evolutionism. 

1,  ExPERiENTiALisM. — This  theory  limits  the  development 
of  conscience  to  the  experience  of  the  individual  who  has  moral 
capacity,  the  experience  of  others  not  being  supposed  to  count 
for  anything  in  his  endowments.  Tlie  individual  man  as  we 
know  liim  is  siii)p()scd  to  start  in  life  perfectly  indillerent  to 
moral  dislinctions  and  witli  no  inlierent  moi-al  conceptions  what- 
ever and  nn  Icndcncy  whatever  di  iippreeiate  tliem,  ])ut  must 
learn  tlieni  hy  contact  with  social  life  and  by  the  various  forms 
of  education.     It  is  to  be  remarked,  however,  that  historically 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  289 

tliis  theory  has  been  almost  wliolly  confined  to  the  phenomenal 
conception  of  conscience.  It  has  not  discussed  the  question  of 
capacities  in  any  metaphysical  sense,  but  only  the  existence  of 
positive  moral  ideas.  Hence  it  is  supposed  to  explain  the 
origin  of  conceptions,  not  of  faculties. 

2.  Evolutionism. — This  theory  holds  that  conscience  is  the 
result  of  a  process  of  development,  but  does  not  limit  the  process 
to  the  life  or  experience  of  the  individual.  It  extends  this  ex- 
perience to  the  race.  It  admits  that  conscience  is  native  or  an 
inborn  capacity  in  the  rational  man  of  to-day,  but  holds  that  it 
was  not  true  of  the  earliest  ancestors  from  whom  the  present 
generations  have  descended.  It  supposes  that  earlier  individ- 
uals accumulated  a  certain  amount  of  experience  and  moral 
knowledge,  the  result  of  which  as  a  habit  or  acquired  capacity 
was  handed  down  by  inheiitance  to  the  successors  of  that  indi- 
vidual. ^yhat  was  due  to  direct  experience  in  the  ancestor  was 
an  inherited  capacity  by  posterity  and  so  is  natural  in  the  latter 
rather  than  acquired.  Experience  again  added  to  this  endowment 
and  was  handed  on  in  the  shape  of  higher  powers  in  the  next 
generation.  ISTatural  selection  was  added  to  this  influence  to 
eliminate  those  who  did  not  acquire  or  possess  the  desideratum 
of  conscience  and  to  secure  the  survival  of  those  who  did  possess 
a  qualification  so  necessary  to  the  social  organism.  The  gradual 
selection  of  the  best  developed  individuals  of  the  species  secured 
the  fixity  of  conscience  in  the  race  and  multiplied  the  tenden- 
cies to  development  in  the  direction  of  perfecting  moral  con- 
sciousness. It  therefore  hastened  the  attainment  of  the  existing 
condition  of  things. 

It  should  be  remarked  in  this  theory,  however,  that  it 
accounts  for  more  than  the  origin  of  the  specific  moral  ideas 
which  the  experience  of  the  individual  determines.  It  also 
undertakes  to  account  for  conscience  as  a  capacity,  and  there- 
fore explains  its  genesis  in  the  transcendental  sense.  It  uses 
the  result  of  experience  as  not  being  wholly  lost  with  the 
death  of  the  individual,  but  passed  on  as  an  inherited  ten- 
dency to  subsequent   generations,   appearing   there    as  natural 


290 


ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 


when  it  was  purely  au  acquired  habit  iu  the  ancestors.  Indi- 
vidual experience  in  this  theory  counts  for  nothing  except  the 
subject's  habits,  which  aj)i:)ear  as  predispositions  in  the  next  and 
following  generation,  where  it  represents  capacity  of  a  certain 
degree,  more  easily  developed  and  with  the  momentum  of  that 
from  which  it  came.  Hence  while  the  theory  admits  the  native 
character  of  conscience  in  the  rational  man  of  to-day,  experience 
is  yet  the  basis  of  it,  being  distributed  over  an  indefinite  period 
of  time  and  beginning  with  individuals  that  possess  no  traces  of 
the  faculty,  representing  as  it  does  now  the  accumulated  re- 
sults of  so  many  generations. 

The  following  table  will  summarize  the  classification  of  the 
theories  on  the  origin  of  conscience,  as  they  have  already  been 
defined.  They  are  not  all  of  them  nuitually  exclusive  in  all  their 
aijpects.     They  oppose  each  other  only  iu  certain  particulars. 


Theism 


Nativism 


Naturalism 
Intuitionalism 


I 


Empiricism 


/  General 
t  Particular 

Experientialism     |  part^Jyi^r 
Evolutionism 


///.  EXAMTXATIOX  OF  XATIVISTIC  THEORIES.— The  threa 
theories  grouped  under  this  general  heading  have  both  their 
merits  and  demerits.  As  already  remarked,  they  are  not  mutu- 
ally exclusive  in  all  of  their  characteristics  and  associations, 
but  have  represented  merely  slight  dilierences  of  points  of  view- 
in  the  development  of  ethical  speculation,  each  one  being  de- 
signed to  effect  a  certain  ])ur])()se  in  the  age  in  which  it  arose. 
.Some  oi"  them  may  be  di.smissed  very  briefly. 

1st.  The  Theistic  Theory. — This  theory  iuid  its  use  in  the 
controversy  witli  Greek  ])iiilusophy  and  received  a  new  impetus 
in  the  controversy  with  evolution.  It  was  designed  to  sustain 
and  vindicate  the  supernatural  in  the  order  of  the  world,  and  to 
('.-tablish  a  basi.s  of  divine  authority  for  morals.  Greek  philoso- 
l^hy  endeavored  to  explain  all  phenomena,  both  of  the  natural 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  COXSCIENCE  291 

and  the  moral  order,  without  an  appeal  to  a  personal  deity  as 
understood  by  the  early  Christians,  and  the  consequence  was 
that  the  distinction  between  man  and  animals  was  not  drawn  in 
the  interest  of  a  doctrine  which  escribed  an  immortal  soul  to  one 
and  denied  it  of  the  other.  But  the  manifest  difierence  of  moral 
capacity  between  them  offered  an  opportunity  both  to  seek  an 
explanation  outside  the  natural  order  for  so  peculiar  a  phenom- 
enon and  to  prove  the  personal  character  of  the  being  from 
whom  man's  moral  nature  originated,  while  at  the  same  time 
establishing  a  principle  of  authority  which  was  presumably  a 
necessity  for  social  order.  We  shall  briefly  summarize  the  char- 
acteristics which  were  involved  in  the  position  thus  taken  and 
their  relation  to  the  wants  of  ethical  theory.  These  will  include 
both  the  merits  and  defects  of  the  doctrine. 

1.  The  theory  of  theism  proves  both  too  much  and  too  little. 
In  maintaining  that  conscience  must  have  a  divine  origin  on  the 
ground  that  there  are  no  traces  of  it  in  the  lower  order  of  nature, 
the  theist  must  hold  either  that  this  nature  is  not  a  creation  of 
the  divine,  or  that  if  it  is  so  created  there  is  no  ethical  advantage 
in  the  theory.  To  admit  the  existence  of  everything  else  without 
the  interposition  of  the  supernatural  is  to  create  a  strong  pre- 
sumption against  an  exception  and  in  favor  of  further  attempts 
to  reduce  the  phenomenon  to  the  natural  order.  If  all  Ijut  one 
event  in  the  world's  history  be  natural,  it  will  require  some 
hardihood  to  demand  an  exception  to  the  law  of  parsimony, 
Avhich  requires  as  few  causes  as  possible  for  the  explanation  of 
things,  and  ultimately  but  one  of  them  to  accord  with  the  unity 
of  the  world.  Hence  the  supernatural  theory  of  conscience  must 
be  at  the  expense  of  the  divine  elsewhere  in  the  economy  of  the 
world,  unless  we  make  everything  supernatural  and  due  to  the 
same  cause.  On  the  other  hand,  to  make  everything  supernatu- 
ral and  divine  is  to  eliminate  the  whole  effect  of  the  supposed 
authority  of  conscience  by  giving  the  natural  equal  weight  and 
importance  in  the  order  of  things  with  the  divine.  This  is 
not  a  refutation  of  theism,  but  only  a  statement  to  show  that 
it  does   not  solve  the  problem  as  scientific  ethics  would  have 


292  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

it  solved.  Ultimately  we  must  trace  all  plienomeua  to  the  same 
cause  to  account  for  their  existence  and  with  tliem  that  of  con- 
science. But  it  is  not  the  explanation  of  the  existence  or  genesis 
of  conscience  that  gives  it  its  validity  and  authority.  These 
qualities  must  be  derived  from  what  it  is,  not  from  the  manner 
of  its  origin.  Theism  pretends  only  to  explain  how  man  ob- 
tained a  moral  nature,  and  not  the  derivation  of  its  character 
and  supremacy.  Hence  it  does  not  effect  what  is  demanded  of  a 
theory,  though  it  may  be  true. 

2.  A  second  difficulty  of  the  theistic  doctrine  of  the  origin  of 
conscience  is  that  it  shifts  the  whole  problem  over  to  theology. 
Theism  must  assume  the  existence  of  God  as  given  in  order  to 
refer  conscience  to  His  creative  power.  If  it  does  not  assume 
this  fact,  either  it  must  surrender  the  right  to  use  the  principle 
for  the  purposes  of  explanation,  for  the  reason  that  we  cannot 
rationally  resort  to  causes  whose  existence  is  not  yet  admitted, 
or  it  must  shift  the  controversy  over  to  the  theological  question 
of  God's  existence,  and  this  would  make  all  ethics  wait  upon  the 
issues  of  theology,  which  seem  less  near  a  solution  than  ethics, 
and  would  discourage  the  attempt  to  get  a  practical  basis  for 
the  authority  of  conscience  until  the  skeptic  could  be  converted 
to  theology.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  theist  means  only  that 
conscience  is  the  revelation  of  God's  existence  and  character,  it 
is  to  be  remarked  that  whatever  relation  God  must  sustain  to 
conscience  as  creator,  this  fiiculty  must  first  be  accepted  and  its 
authority  granted  before  its  testimony  can  be  admitted,  and  this 
is  to  make  its  value  independent  of  every  question  of  its  origin. 
In  any  case,  therefore,  the  theistic  theory,  whether  true  or  not, 
is  irrelevant  to  the  issue  raised  by  ethics,  which  is  the  ground  of 
morality  rather  than  the  origin  of  the  function  of  it. 

3.  In  spite  of  the  conclusion  just  announced  the  question  of 
genesis  conies  up  in  ethical  sj)CCulation.  But  it  is  the  genesis  of 
tlic  mental  phenomena  which  arc  the  expression  of  conscience 
ratlier  than  the  faculty  of  them.  Now,  the  utmost  that  the 
theistic  theory  has  ever  claimed  to  do  was  to  explain  the  crea- 
ti<ju  of  conscience  iu  the  iranacmdental  sense;  it  has  not  in- 


THE  OBIGIX  OF  COXSCIEXCE  293 

tended  to  explain  conscience  jyhenomenaUy ;  that  is,  to  assign 
the  cause  or  causes  of  the  particular  phenomena,  cognitive,  leg- 
islative, and  judicial,  whose  domination  of  life  has  given  them 
together  the  name  of  conscience.  It  has  gone  no  further  than 
to  explain  how  man  can  possess  this  qualification  when  it  is  sup- 
posed that  animal  existence  is  without  it  and  without  the  germs 
of  it.  But  the  real  problem  of  ethics  is  the  influences  which 
have  given  rise  to  the  persistency  and  predominance  of  moral 
consciousness  in  the  economy  of  rational  life,  and  these  can  be 
sought,  though  they  may  be  secondary  causes,  without  either 
assuming  or  denying  theism.  A  direct  appeal  to  a  supernatural 
origin  for  them  as  mental  states  would  prove  more  than  theism 
either  desires  or  needs  to  prove.  It  is  the  condition  or  condi- 
tions of  conscience  as  a  phenomenon  that  scientific  ethics  seeks 
to  establish.  Theism  has  not  aimed  to  do  this,  but  it  does  not 
conflict  with  this  object  and  hence  will  be  irrelevant  to  the  real 
issue.* 

4.  A  fact  which  has  done  much  to  invite  opposition  to  the 
theistic  theory  has  been  its  association  with  the  attemjjt  to  estab- 

*  If  it  be  said  that  theism  is  in  conflict  with  evolution  on  the  ground 
that  both  theories  aim  to  explain  the  origin  of  conscience  in  the  tran- 
scendenUd  sense  it  can  be  replied  that  this  will  depend  wholly  upon  the 
retention  and  the  legitimacy  of  the  distinction  between  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural.  Theism  is  supposed  to  depend  wholly  upon  the  super- 
natural and  evolution  upon  the  natural.  But  for  philosophic  purposes  I 
must  deny  the  legitimacy  of  the  distinction  unless  it  is  made  to  coincide 
with  that  between  subject  and  phenomena,  in  which  there  is  no  conflict, 
but  only  a  difierence.  Moreover,  apart  from  this  no  distinction  can  be 
assigned  between  them  that  has  any  importance  for  the  philosophic  ques- 
tion, because  in  explaining  the  origin  of  anything  the  "  natural "  can  only 
be  the  continuous  or  regular  action  of  that  which  the  notion  of  the  "super- 
natural" makes  only  occasional.  The  nature  of  the  force  must  be  the 
same.  Hence  in  refusing  to  recognize  any  distinction  of  character  be- 
tween the  "natural"  and  "supernatural"  we  simply  indicate  that  theism 
and  evolution  may  either  be  two  sides  of  the  same  shield  or  one  is  only  a 
doctrine  of  creatio  occasionalis  and  the  other  of  creatio  continue.  This  dis- 
tinction may  be  an  interesting  one,  but  it  has  no  importance  for  ethics  be- 
cause the  nature  of  the  agency  in  both  cases  must  be  the  same.  It  is  only 
a  question  of  its  law. 


294  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

lish  an  external  authority  for  the  deliverances  of  conscience. 
Thb  view  might  satisfy  an  age  when*  individual  liberty  and  the 
right  of  private  judgment  were  denied,  but  whenever  these  came 
to  be  affirmed  the  philosophic  aspects  of  the  theory  would  natu- 
j-ally  pay  the  penalty  of  its  practical  weakness.  Hence  since 
the  Protestant  Reformation  the  importance  of  the  theory  has 
diminished  everywhere  except  under  conditions  in  which  the 
value  of  external  authority  was  still  retained  as  a  counter- 
agent  to  the  irresponsibilities  of  ignorance  and  impulse.  The 
general  revolt  against  the  principle  of  authority  has  carried 
with  it  a  marked  diminution  in  the  power  and  influence  of  the 
theistic  theory,  while  showing  also  that  ethics  is  less  interested 
in  the  origin  than  the  character  of  conscience, 

5.  There  is  another  fact  of  some  interest.  AVhatever  criti- 
cisms may  be  made  against  certain  features  of  theism  it  has 
the  very  great  merit  of  being  associated  usually  with  very  high 
ideals  of  duty  and  of  God.  In  fact  the  theory  has  done  much 
to  idealize  either  our  conception  of  conscience  or  our  conception 
of  God.  Some  would  say  that  the  moral  nature  of  God  is  only 
a  reflection  of  the  particular  age  that  placed  a  high  value  upon 
conscience,  God  being  given  no  other  character  than  power  as 
long  as  the  idea  of  authority  prevailed.  Others  would  say  that 
conscience  derived  its  ideal  and  moral  character  from  the  divine 
agent  who  created  it.-^  But  without  dwelling  on  the  differences 
between  these  two  modes  of  thought  it  remains  true  that  the 
theory  has  the  merit  of  being  associated  with  that  sense  of  the 
idealization  and  sanctity  of  conscience  which  gave  it  more 
power  in  the  economy  of  individual  life  than  if  it  had  been  re- 
ducetl  to  the  lower  level  of  irrational  desires. 

2d.  Naturalism. — This  theory  has  many  of  the  defects  of  the 

*  There  is  no  necessan*  contradiction  between  tliese  two  points  of 
view.  Tlic  cluiracter  of  conscience  ni;iy  be  the  evidence  (ratio  cogno- 
scendi)  of  fJod's  nature,  wliile  (Jod's  nature  may  be  tlie  cmiac  (ratio  fiendi) 
of  the  character  of  conscience.  Ilcnce  tlie  morality  of  conscience  may  be 
the  means  of  our  knowing  wliat  God  is,  while  lie  may  be  the  cause  of  what 
conscience  is  in  its  character. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  295 

tbeistic  view.  Indeed  it  is  only  the  obverse  side  of  the  same  doc- 
trine and  provokes  the  same  controversies,  while  it  is  perhaps 
quite  as  irrelevant  to  the  real  issues  of  ethics.  It  has  also  the 
obverse  merit  of  theism.  It  has  been  more  distinctly  associated 
with  the  idea  of  individual  liberty,  responsibility,  and  the  right 
of  j)rivate  judgment,  and  so  with  the  notion  of  only  an  internal 
authority  over  conduct. 

3d.  Intuitionalism. — As  has  already  been  stated  this  theory 
concerns  the  origin  of  moral  ideas  rather  than  the  origin  of 
moral  faculty.  It  is  therefore  wholly  unrelated  to  the  transcen- 
dental conception  of  conscience.  But  its  meaning  is  not  clear  in 
its  application  to  the  phenomenal  conception.  It  is  generally 
supposed  to  be  opposed  to  every  form  of  empiricism.  But  this 
assumption  will  hardly  beai'  investigation,  as  the  equivocations  of 
the  term  will  show.  It  is  true  that  in  some  of  its  meanings  it  is 
opposed  to  the  empirical  theory,  but  not  in  all  of  them.  Hence 
before  discussing  the  theory  directly,  we  should  clearly  understand 
the  various  meanings  of  the  term. 

1.  Meaning  of  the  Term  Intuition. — There  are  at  least 
three  distinct  significations  of  this  term  bearing  upon  the  contro- 
versy at  hand.  They  are  (a)  immediate  cognition,  (h)  necessary 
cognition,  and  (c)  universal  cognition.  The  first  of  these  de- 
notes simply  directness  of  perception,  or  direct  consciousness  of  a 
fact  without  the  accompaniment  of  repeated  experiences  to  prove 
or  confirm  an  impression.  Thus  I  intuitively  perceive  my  sensa- 
tions in  the  sense  that  I  do  not  need  to  repeat  an  experiment 
with  them  in  order  to  know  that  they  are  mine.  Again,  I  intu- 
itively perceive  that  two  and  two  make  four  in  the  sense  that 
when  I  do  perceive  or  suspect  the  fact  at  all,  I  do  not  require  to 
have  the  phenomenon  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  order  to 
be  convinced  of  its  truth.  In  this  sense  of  the  term,  it  is 
identical  with  the  first  meaning  of  "experience,"  which  is 
realization  in  consciousness  as  a  fact  of  consciousness.  This 
conception  of  it  has  no  implications  whatever  about  the  time  in 
the  life  of  the  individual  when  the  act  of  perception  may  occur, 
nor  does  it  involve  any  theory  about  the  way  the  intuitive  power 


296  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

came  into  existence.  It  may  be  natural  or  acquired.  In  either 
case  its  function  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  immediate  insight 
when  it  acts. 

The  second  meaning  of  the  term  implies  that  an  intuitive  truth 
must  necessarily  be  known  or  assumed  by  all  rational  beings. 
Hence  to  assert  that  right  and  wrong  are  necessary  cognitions 
means  that  they  must  be  kno^vn  by  every  being  who  is  sane 
at  all,  and  that  we  should  have  to  eliminate  the  reason  or  con- 
sciousness of  such  beings  in  order  to  expel  their  knowledge 
of  moral  conceptions  or  their  capacity  for  them. 

The  third  meaning  of  the  term  is  that  intuitive  truths  are 
cognized  as  a  fact  by  all  rational  beings.  It  does  not  involve  the 
necessity  of  such  knowledge,  but  only  the  fact  that  it  is 
universal.  It  is  taken  to  imply  that  the  capacity  for  such  per- 
ception is  an  inborn  function  of  the  subject.  Thus  intuitive 
moral  perceptions  would  be  the  universal  recognition  of  the 
character  of  murder,  theft,  disobedience  of  conscience,  ingrati- 
tude, cruelty,  etc.,  or  the  possession  of  general  moral  ideas,  a  sense 
of  right  and  wrong  somewhere,  if  only  of  the  most  primitive  kind, 
as  resistance  to  injury,  love  of  parents,  etc.  They  are  called 
intuitive  because  all  men  are  supposed  to  be  able  to  have  such 
knowledge. 

Now,  intuitionalism,  as  a  theory  of  conscience  or  of  moral  ideas, 
implies  the  simultaneous  possession  of  all  three  forms  of  cognition  as 
necessary  to  its  purposes,  namely,  that  moral  distinctions,  either 
general  or  particular,  must  be  immediate,  universal,  and  neces- 
sary. It  is  a  peculiarity  of  mental  processes  that  they  may 
be  immediate  without  being  either  universal  or  necessary, 
and  necessary  without  being  immediate  and  universal  without 
being  cither  immediate  or  necessary.  If  they  are  necessary,  how- 
ever, they  must  1)C  univer.-al.  All  this  will  be  apparent  to  the 
mo.^t  snperficiiil.  Jiut  the  test  of  an  intuitive  truth  has 
been  that  it  should  have  all  three  cjualilications.  The  impor- 
tance of  this  to  the  theory  will  be  evident  from  the  object 
of  tlic  theory  itself. 

2.  The  Object  ok  Motive  of  Intuitionalism. — The  funda- 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  297 

mental  object  of  this  theory,  without  which  the  doctrine  would 
never  have  been  proposed,  was  to  supply  a  basis  for  universal  re- 
sponsibilitij.  "We  have  already  seen  that  at  least  the  capacity 
for  moral  distinctions  is  necessary  before  any  degree  of  responsi- 
bility whatever  can  be  admitted,  and  that  the  actual  consciousness 
of  the  distinction  will  affect  the  degree  of  responsibility,  and  that 
a  man  is  exempt  from  punishment  or  discipline  in  proportion  to 
the  absence  of  the  actual  consciousness  of  wrong  in  his  conduct. 
In  order,  therefore,  to  justify  the  application  of  responsibility  to 
all  persons  alike,  it  had  to  be  assumed  that  they  were  capable  of 
moral  conceptions.  Conscience  had  thus  to  be  made  universal 
and  necessary  as  a  condition  of  amenability  to  rewards  and  punish- 
ment. It  was  therefore  only  natural  to  make  its  actual  knowl- 
edge all  that  could  be  attributed  to  inherent  and  inborn 
capacities ;  namely,  intuitive,  universal,  and  necessary  cognition. 
Otherwise  morality  and  responsibility  would  have  to  be  sacrificed 
to  the  same  extent  to  which  these  qualities  were  sacrificed,  and  as 
the  age  which  originated  the  doctrine  was  very  strict  in  its 
application  of  equal  responsibility,  its  theory  was  very  stanchly 
defended,  and  for  the  sake  of  social  order  men  were  very  chary 
about  admitting  any  limitations  to  it.  This  is  the  secret  of  the 
strong  antagonism  to  empiricism  which  breaks  down  the  very 
principle  of  universal  responsibility  and  can  admit  it  only  where 
conscience  happens  to  have  been  developed.  In  the  light,  there- 
fore, both  of  this  fact  and  the  definition  of  the  term  we  may 
examine  the  two  theories. 

3.  General  Intuitionalism. — As  defined  this  theory  holds 
that  the  principle  of  moral  distinctions  is  known  before  the  full 
measure  of  its  application  to  particular  acts  is  known  and  even 
conditions  the  possibility  of  such  an  application.  For  instance, 
in  order  to  know  that  a  particular  act  is  murder  the  subject 
must  know  what  murder  is,  and  to  know  the  sin  of  murder  he 
must  know  how  it  affects  the  welfare  of  others.  To  know  that 
stealing  is  wrong  he  must  have  a  notion  of  the  sacredness  of  prop- 
erty, and  this  he  will  ol)tain  from  the  native  sense  of  possession 
or  right  to  one's  own  product  and  labor.     In  short,  to  judge  of 


298  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  character  of  any  paiticuhir  act  whatever,  the  individual 
must  have  a  prior  conception  of  that  which  determines  its 
character,  and  the  particular  act  must  be  that  which  determines 
the  nature  of  other  events  which  are  causally  connected  with  it. 
Now,  the  difficulty  of  jjroving  that  men  have  any  such  prior 
consciousness  of  the  ultimate  principle  of  right  and  wrong 
grows  out  of  two  facts :  (a)  the  possibility  that  some  one  of  the 
three  necessary  qualifications  of  intuitive  truth  may  be  wanting, 
and  (b)  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  intuitionalism  has  not 
always  made  it  clear  whether  by  intuitive  ideas  it  meant  implicit 
or  explicit  knowledge ;  that  is,  consciousness  of  a  fact  which  is 
moral,  or  the  consciousness  that  it  is  moral. 

(a)  In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  difficulties  it  is  easy  to 
indicate  so  many  differences  of  opinion  respecting  morality 
among  men,  and  so  many  cases  where  the  very  conception  of 
morality  as  accepted  by  rational  men  is  or  seems  to  be  wanting, 
that  the  universality  and  therefore  the  necessity  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions would  seem  to  be  justifiably  denied.  Savages  do  not 
revolt  against  cruelty,  chastity  seems  not  to  be  known  in  some 
stages  of  culture,  lying  is  a  qualification  to  be  cultivated  by 
some  people,  and  actions  generally  are  only  the  pursuit  of  per- 
sonal interest  in  which  it  is  suj^posed  that  morality  is  not  latent. 
These  and  thousands  of  similar  illustrations  might  be  adduced  to 
show  that  there  is  no  single  conception  of  morality  common  to 
mankind  and  that  the  sense  of  duty,  the  fundamental  character- 
istic of  conscience,  is  wanting. 

The  first  reply  to  this  argument  Avould  be  that  it  is  not 
necessary  for  the  intuitive  character  of  moral  principles  that 
they  everywhere  take  the  same  concrete  fijrm ;  cruelty,  un- 
chastity,  and  injustice  might  be  very  connnon,  not  from  the 
lack  of  any  conception  of  right  and  wrong,  but  only  from  the 
lack  of  perceiving  that  certain  known  ideas  are  applicable  to 
the  ciusc  at  hand.  The  germ  (jf  morality  may  be  recognized  in 
some  ca.«c,  Init  not  its  apj)lication  to  anotlier.  For  instance, 
regard  i'm-  the  welfare  of  the  tribe  may  l)e  known  and  api)re- 
ciatod,  and  yet  neither  chastity  nor  justice  may   Ijc  recognized 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  299 

toward  those  not  in  the  tribe.  Indeed,  there  are  instances  where 
even  chastity  is  respected  within  certain  limits  and  not  in  others. 
This  is  even  true  in  modern  times.  A  man  may  insist  upon  the 
chastity  of  his  own  household,  and  yet  not  regard  it  himself  in 
the  person  of  others.  This  is  a  contradiction,  but  it  does  not 
disprove  his  consciousness  of  moral  distinctions.  It  only  shows 
that  he  is  not  consistent  in  the  application  of  them.  A  man 
may  know  and  respect  a  thing  which  has  the  qualities — that  is, 
the  intension — of  morality,  but  neither  recognize  them  as  such 
nor  their  application  to  other  concrete  cases  ;  that  is,  their  exten- 
sion. A  man  may  feel  a  constraint  to  defend  the  tribe,  his 
family,  or  the  state,  and  yet  not  perceive  that  this  duty,  with  its 
implied  respect  for  the  individuals  of  the  family  or  community, 
involves  a  great  many  other  virtues.  It  is  this  extension  of  a 
given  law  to  particular  cases  which  has  to  be  learned  by  experi- 
ence, but  this  fact  does  not  involve  the  use  of  experience  for  the 
principle  itself.  And  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  some  forms  of 
empiricism  are  even  based  upon  the  assumption  of  a  general  con- 
sciousness which  makes  possible  the  development  of  common 
conceptions  by  experience.  Of  this  more  again.  At  present  it 
suffices  to  note  the  fact  as  proof  of  the  general  principle  of  in- 
tuitionalism. 

A  second  fact  in  the  same  direction  is  that  intuitionalists  have 
only  claimed  that  their  doctrine  applies  to  rational  beings,  in 
whom  they  could  evidently  find  traces  of  immediate  and  univer- 
sal conceptions  of  right  and  Vrong.  But  it  is  a  manifest 
weakness  of  the  theory  that  it  has  no  criterion  of  rationality  to 
determine  where  and  when  the  line  shall  be  drawn  between 
rational  and  irrational  members  of  the  human  race.  This  is  to 
say  that  its  conception  of  man  is  broader  than  that  of  rational 
man,  and  the  empiricist  might  well  admit  the  fact  and  use  it  in 
his  own  favor. 

A  third  reply  to  the  empiricist's  argument  would  be  that  all 
men  do  recognize  the  value  of  pleasure  and  the  evil  of  pain,  and 
that  this  is  the  basis  of  moral  distinctions.  This  rei)ly  must 
have  great  force  with  the  utilitarian,  who  asserts  both  that  all 


300  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

men  draw  this  distinction  instinctively  and  that  pleasure  is  the 
highest  good  and  pain  the  ultimate  evil.  To  say  that  pleasure 
is  the  highest  good  implies  either  that  it  must  be  intuitively 
known  or  that  utilitarianism  is  not  true.  If  the  goodness  of 
pleasure  is  not  a  native  perception,  it  must  be  acquired  by  ex- 
perience, which  would  make  it  imjirobable  that  all  men  would 
have  the  same  idea  of  it,  since  their  experience  varies  and  the 
utilitarian  princij^le  is  broken  down  on  that  side.  On  the  other, 
if  it  is  not  the  highest  good  the  doctrine  is  again  abandoned. 
Hence  as  long  as  utilitarians,  and  empiricists,  who  are  invariably 
utilitarians,  maintain  both  that  pleasure  is  universal  and  that  it 
is  the  highest  good,  they  must  admit  the  intuitive,  universal,  and 
necessary  character  of  something  which  conditions  the  applica- 
tion of  their  own  theory  of  morality  and  the  development  of 
conscience.  When  they  resolve  morality  into  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure  and  make  this  an  organic  element  of  consciousness,  they 
admit  the  whole  method  of  intuitionalism,  though  they  may  not 
admit  the  object  of  it. 

It  is  a  fact  that  intuitionalism  has  often  made  some  other  end 
than  pleasure  the  ultimate  object  of  volition,  but  this  is  neither 
a  necessary  part  of  its  method  nor  a  universal  accompaniment  of 
the  theory.  The  aesthetic  school  of  morality  admitted  a  moral 
sense  though  making  its  object  happiness  or  pleasure.  Happi- 
ness is  not  the  exclusive  property  of  the  empiricist.  All  that 
intuitionalism  ultimately  requires  is  some  such  universal  object 
of  volition  which  conditions  suryival  in  order  to  maintain  that 
the  fundamental  distinction  of  morality  is  innate  or  natural  as 
opposed  to  what  is  acquired.  In  that  case  empirical  morality 
is  only  a  more  highly  developed  pui*suit  of  this  object,  whose 
relation  to  the  particular  virtues  is  lost  by  the  process  of  ab- 
straction which  goes  on  in  the  formation  of  all  com])lex  ideas. 

It  can  Ijc  farther  said,  also,  that  a  conception  of  moral  oliliga.- 
tion  is  actually  more  general  than  the  empiricists  admit  and 
than  their  theory  will  permit  them  to  concede.  In  savage 
tribes,  notably  among  the  Indians  of  this  continent,  whose  social 
life  i.s  as  simple  a.s  it  can  well  be,  we  often  find  a  sense  of  right 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  301 

as  clear  and  distinct  as  among  the  most  liiglily  civilized.  The 
Egyptian  who  showed  distinct  signs  of  gi'atitude  when  his 
life  was  spared  by  his  English  captors,  though  he  had  never 
seen  such  clemency  before,  manifested  a  consciousness  of  nobility 
which  has  very  great  possibilities  in  it.  The  Indian's  fidelity 
to  his  promises  and  the  revenge  he  takes  for  the  infractions 
of  treaties  with  him,  though  they  may  show  great  callousness  of 
heart  in  regard  to  cruelty,  are  proof  of  a  clear  knowledge  of 
what  is  right  in  one  relation.  The  Australian  savage  whose 
desire  to  kill  was  so  strong  that  he  could  not  walk  behind  a 
stranger  without  an  almost  irresistible  temptation  to  slay  him, 
and  who  asked  to  walk  in  front  of  him  in  order  to  quell  the 
desire,  showed  as  clear  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong  as  any  one 
could  be  expected  to  have.  Thousands  of  similar  illustrations 
might  be  chosen  to  the  same  effect.  They  show  the  existence  of 
moral  consciousness  where  it  is  least  to  be  expected,  though  the 
instances  may  be  so  casual  as  to  render  the  detection  of  it  very 
rare  and  difiicult.  The  general  habits  of  the  individual  do  not 
regard  the  distinction,  and  we  imagine  it  and  the  capacity  for  it 
wholly  absent,  when  it  is  merely  latent  and  ineffective.  The 
trouble  with  the  savage  may  not  be  the  absence  of  all  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong,  but  only  their  inefficiency  among  the  tempta- 
tions of  personal  interest.  But  we  should  not  deny  their  existence 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  not  supreme.  In  fact  it  is  the 
assumption  that  savages  are  redeemable,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
and  that  under  experience,  discipline,  and  education  they  may 
learn  moral  habits,  which  justifies  all  efibrts  to  accomplish  this 
result.  Such  attempts  would  be  very  foolish  if  the  assumption 
were  not  true.  Development  and  experience  assume  that  a 
recognized  principle  is  given  and  that  it  is  the  business  of  these 
processes  to  extend,  not  to  create,  it.  Hence  we  must  not  confuse 
the  inefficiency  of  moral  principles  with  their  absence.  On  the 
other  hand,  intuitionalists  require  to  be  warned  against  assuming 
more  than  is  true  and  more  than  is  necessary  for  their  method. 
They  require  only  enough  to  condition  a  certain  amount  of 
responsibility,  and  not  the  equality  which  scholasticism  taught 


302  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  which  is  still  the  echo  of  intuitive  doctrine.  But  its  general 
principle  is  not  only  not  opposed  to  some  forms  of  emjjiricism, 
but  is  the  condition  of  them,  in  that  a  common  experience  is  not 
possible  without  a  common  consciousness  of  some  kind. 

(6)  In  regard  to  the  second  difficulty,  which  was  that  the 
theory  did  not  make  clear  always,  whether  the  iutuitire  ideas 
w'hich  it  claimed  were  implicit  or  explicit,  it  must  be  said  that 
the  fact  is  a  source  of  weakness.  We  shall  grant  also  that  if 
intuitionalism  is  conditioned  upon  the  explicit  consciousness 
of  morality  as  such,  even  of  the  most  general  form,  it  cannot  be 
sustained.  Experience  is  the  only  influence  which  can  develop 
this  aspect  of  moral  consciousness.  But  when  the  theory  is 
properly  understood  and  explained,  it  affirms  only  the  implicit 
consciousness  of  morality  as  ultimate  and  intuitive ;  that  is,  the 
consciousness  of  a  fact  which  is  imperative  before  the  consciousness 
that  it  is  an  imperative  fact  of  a  moral  order.  Thus  the  savage 
even  may  feel  a  constraint  to  defend  the  social  order  of  his  tribe, 
and  it  may  be  a  moral  duty  to  do  so,  though  he  has  not  yet 
formed  an  abstract  conception  of  this  obligation.  This  "  uncon- 
scious "  morality,  as  it  is  often  called,  meaning  morality  of  the 
uni'eflective  non-self-conscious  form,  is  the  primitive  stage  of  all 
highly  developed  and  conscious  morality,  and  in  fact  conditions 
it.  There  will  be  found  in  it  often  all  the  elements  of  the 
mature  conscience,  though  so  distorted  and  misdirected  as 
to  make  them  unrecognizable.  Thus  the  savage  whose  wife  had 
died,  and  who  pined  away  for  a  year  or  more  from  remorse 
at  not  having  killed  some  woman  according  to  the  law  of  his 
tribe,  and  returned  to  his  master  after  a  year's  absence,  hearty, 
hale,  and  liapi>y,  after  effecting  the  murder  of  a  woman  in  a  dis- 
tant tribe,  showed  as  much  conscience  as  the  civilized  man, 
though  it  was  terribly  distorted.  It  is  not  the  correctness  of  the 
object  wliich  makes  conscience,  but  the  presence  of  the  mental 
elements  we  have  described.  Conscience  may  be  badly  educated, 
l)ut  the  worst  distortions  of  its  functions  do  not  disprove  its  exist- 
eiicr,  but  only  iliinfd/lihlUhj.  Hence  the  worst  specimens  of  man- 
kind may  have  it  with  its  moral  distinctions  implicit  in  their 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  303 

consciousness,  tliougli  not  developed  to  its  full  extent  or  properly 
enlightened  in  regard  to  its  application  to  human  life.  If 
intuitionalism  bases  itself  upon  this  fact  it  may  be  a  tenable 
theory,  or  at  least  it  may  have  the  merits  of  a  working  hypoth- 
esis, and  b}'  acting  upon  it  we  shall  generally  see  that  wisdom  is 
justified  of  her  children.  Speaking  of  the  most  degenerate  and 
unpromising,  one  writer  says :  "  How  are  we  to  see  their 
good  possibilities  if  there  are  no  signs  of  them  or  none  that  we 
can  see?  Well,  it  is  our  business  to  look  till  we  do  see,  to 
search  till  we  find.  But,  for  practical  guidance  in  case  of 
despair,  I  would  suggest  the  rule,  even  Avhen  there  are  no  signs 
of  goodness  or  ability,  still  believe  in  both ;  no  one  is  so  hopelessly 
bad  or  hopelessly  stupid  that  your  faith  will  not  prove  in  itself  a 
cause  of  cure.  The  rational  conviction  left  in  my  mind,  indeed, 
after  some  experience  of  success  and  of  failure,  is  that,  so  far  as 
my  knowledge  of  means  of  influence  go,  this  simple  practical  faith 
in  every  individual's  worth,  and  in  one's  power  of  bringing  that 
worth  to  light,  is  best  of  all."  This,  of  course,  is  but  the  popular 
statement  of  a  belief  that  turns  out  true,  to  some  extent  at  least, 
whenever  tried,  and  confirms  the  assumption  both  of  latent  ca- 
pacities and  of  recognized  principles  upon  which  morality  can  be 
developed.  Intuitionalism  explains  that  assumption  and  serves 
as  the  basis  of  that  responsibility  or  degree  of  it  which  every 
moralist,  whether  an  empiricist  or  not,  must  assume,  or  wholly 
abandon  morality  and  its  demands  upon  the  individual  members 
of  society.  Experience  can  do  absolutely  nothing  to  develop  a 
common  moral  consciousness  unless  there  is  a  common  principle 
to  work  upon,  and  hence  general  intuitionalism  must  be  accejjted 
as  a  condition  of  giving  any  meaning  to  the  empiricist's  conclu- 
sion about  a  common  morality,  though  the  theory  must  be  based 
upon  the  implicit  rather  than  the  explicit  knowledge  of  moral 
conceptions. 

4.  Particular  Intuitionalism. — This  form  of  the  tlieory 
maintains  that  we  intuitively  know  the  character  of  the  particu- 
lar virtues  and  vices,  such  as  murder,  theft,  cruelty,  injustice, 
honesty,  purity,  veracity,  etc.     This  is  to  say,  that  we  should 


304  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

kno\Y  the  sin  of  cruelty  without  any  experience,  but  immediately 
^vhen  incase  of  it  is  brouglit  to  our  notice ;  that  we  should  recog- 
nize the  virtue  of  veracity  without  being  told  it.  This,  however, 
is  an  exaggerated  form  of  the  theory,  which,  we  admit,  cannot  be 
maintained  for  a  moment.  The  particular  virtues  and  vices  are 
nothing  more  than  means  to  ends,  causes  of  effects,  and  no 
human  mind  can  tell  by  a  j)riori  processes  the  particular  causes  of 
an  effect.  Man  must  await  the  judgment  of  experience,  though 
the  principle  of  cause  and  effect  be  a  priori  and  intuitive.  For 
example,  cruelty  is  a  particular  act  which  produces  pain  to  some 
other  person.  We  can  only  tell  by  experience  that  such  an  act 
causes  pain  and  that  it  will  always  do  so.  There  is  no  way 
to  tell  the  fact  a  priori.  The  same  is  true  of  all  the  actions 
which  represent  the  special  virtues  and  vices.  We  only  learn 
by  experience  that  they  are  means  to  ends,  and  for  all  that  we 
know  to  the  contrary  the  same  actions  might  have  produced 
pleasure  until  we  learn  their  nature  by  observation  and  frequent 
experience.  Moreover,  it  is  conclusive  against  this  form  of  the 
theory  that  there  is  no  such  uniformity  of  belief  and  knowledge 
regarding  special  actions  as  must  follow  the  supposition  of  that 
doctrine.  Nothing  is  clearer  than  the  fact  that  some  men  do  not 
know  the  duty  of  chastity ;  children  arc  slow  to  learn  what 
cruelty  is;  savages  arc  ignorant  of  many  of  the  virtues  even 
when  conscience  may  be  clear  as  to  one  or  two  of  them.  In 
short,  the  differences  of  civilization,  culture,  opinion,  and  practice, 
the  world  over  and  in  all  ages  of  history,  make  it  inijiossible  to 
Kuj)pose  that  men  arc  equally  informed  as  to  the  extent  of  their 
duties,  without  supposing  an  inefficiency  in  those  duties,  which  is 
highly  improbable.  Hence  in  the  present  writer's  ojjinion,  how- 
ever desiral)le  it  might  be  to  have  a  greater  uniformity  of 
insight  into  tlic  specific  virtues,  if  only  in  the  interests  of  a 
theory  wliich  conditions  the  higher  degrees  of  responsibility,  it  is 
a  fact  that  it  cannot  be  borne  out  by  observation  and  experience, 
and  it  only  results  in  inliunianity  to  tissume  it.  The  only  form 
of  intuitionalism  tliat  will  bear  a  moment's  examination  is  the 
general    one,  assuming  an   im})ru'it    knowledge    of  moral    law, 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  COysCIIJXCE  305 

while  we  must  leave  to  experience  the  development  of  an  explicit 
knowledge  of  it  and  its  full  extension.     Only  its  intension  can 
be  given  in  original  knowledge.     Its  extension  represents  just 
those  influences  which  it  is  vain  to  deny  in  life,  namely,  educa- 
tion and  discipline,  which  are  the  instruments  of  experience.   The 
only  object  in  defending  any  form  of  the  doctrine  at  all  is  the 
necessity  of  supporting  the  very  responsibility  which  the  empiri- 
cist admits,  and  must  admit,  if  he  does  not  hold  to  the  absolute 
relativity  of  all  knowledge,  which  Avould  mean  that  no  two  per- 
sons were  sufficiently  alike  to  justify  the  application  of  the  same 
moral  law  to  them.     But  this  is  too  extravagant  for  any  one  to 
take  seriously.     Hence  when  empiricists  admit  the  common  con- 
sciousness which  conditions  a  common  experience  and  a  common 
development,  we  may  well  concede  that  the  variations  which  we 
observe  in  moral  development  are  the  product  of  experience ; 
especially  when  it  serves  to  explain  and  condition  the  humanity 
that  is  obligatory  in  a  state  of  unequal  responsil)ility.     This  will 
be  seen  in  the  sequel  of  the  discussion  of  empiricism.     In  the 
meantime  we  can,  grant  that  particular  intuitionalism  has  no 
claims  to  stand  upon,  supporting,  meanwhile,  that  form  of  it  which 
does  not  oppose  empiricism,  while  it  serves  as  a  basis  for  apply- 
ing the  same  principles  to  all  men  in  a  social  organism,  though 
modified  by  the  conditions  that  affect  the  degrees  of  responsibil- 
ity, but  not  the  existence  of  it.     With  this  we  may  turn  to  the 
next  class  of  theories. 

IV.  EXAMINATION  OF  EMPIRICAL  THEORIES.— li  will 
not  be  necessary  here  to  follow  out  the  analysis  of  theories  far- 
ther than  the  two  general  forms,  experientialism  and  evolu- 
tionism. Though  we  might  discuss  both  general  and  particular 
experientialism  with  the  same  conception  of  the  two  terms  as 
was  applied  to  intuitionalism,  we  should  find  that  it  would  not 
serve  any  useful  purpose.  The  nature  of  the  arguments  is  such 
that  the  distinction  does  not  require  to  be  made,  though  it 
would  result  in  denying  the  empirical  character  of  the  ultimate 
principles  upon  which  morality  rests  and  the  affirmation  that 
particular  empiricism  is  true.     This  will  be  the  conclusion  that 


306  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

we  sLall  adopt,  while  the  discussion  of  the  qiiestiou  involves 
problems  that  are  not  peculiar  to  one  of  them  alone,  but  to  both 
alike.  The  first  matter  of  importance  will  be  to  repeat  a  cau- 
tion about  the  double  meaning  of  the  term  "  experience,"  and 
the  effect  of  it  upon  the  controversy.  Only  one  of  its  significa- 
tions opposes  it  to  intuitionalism,  while  the  other  is  at  least 
partly  identical  with  it,  so  that  'we  must  not  allow  the  forma- 
tion of  our  ojiinions  to  create  any  illusions  due  to  not  observing 
the  equivocation  to  which  we  have  alluded. 

1st.  Experientialism. — The  definition  of  this  form  of  empir- 
icism limits  it  to  two  conceptions — (a)  the  origin  of  moral  ideas, 
not  faculties ;  that  is,  conscience  2:)henomenaUy,  not  transcen- 
dentally,  understood ;  and  (6)  the  limitation  of  this  origin  to 
the  experience  of  the  individual,  not  the  race.  We  shall  discuss 
the  theory  by  examining  the  arguments  for  it  and  then  those 
against  it. 

1.  Arguments  in  Favor  of  Experientialism. — The  as- 
sumptions which  are  made  in  the  argument  are  generally  the 
same  in  both  forms  of  the  theory,  though  they  are  not  always 
explicitly  understood.  The  importance  of  a  better  understand- 
ing of  them  will  appear  in  the  sequel  of  our  criticism.  But  in 
the  meantime  we  can  simply  state  and  explain  the  cogency  of 
the  claims  made  in  favor  of  the  theory.  The  arguments  upon 
which  its  advocates  rely  are  as  follows : 

(a)  The  Association  of  Conduct  ivith  Pleasure  and  Pain. — 
This  argument  was  proposed  after  Hartley's  rediscovery  of 
a.ssociation  qs  a  fundamental  law  of  mind.  The  utilitarians 
seized  upon  it  to  combat  the  doctrine  which  claimed,  or  seemed 
to  claim,  that  the  nature  of  moral  rules  about  honesty,  veracity, 
justice,  tlicft,  homicide,  etc.,  were  directly  known  without  refer- 
ence, near  or  remote,  to  pleasure  and  pain.  Then  again  what- 
ever the  ultimate  end  of  life,  it  was  apparent  that  the  particular 
virtues  were  but  meayis  to  attain  it,  and  the  vices  but  means  of 
losing  it.  Then  the  prol)Iein  was  to  explain  how  we  came  to 
adopt  such  rules;  how  we  came  to  connect  them  witli  tlic  ulti- 
mate object  of  life.     Inasmuch   as   the   utililarian   niaintaincd 


THE  OBIGIX  OF  CONSCIEXCE  307 

that  pleasure  or  happiness  is  the  highest  good  and  pain  the  only- 
evil,  his  problem  was  to  explain  how  we  came  to  attach  the 
predicate  of  morality  to  rules  and  actions,  which  led  to  this  re- 
sult. His  argument,  therefore,  was  that  whatever  the  source  of 
our  idea  of  the  highest  good,  the  rules  for  obtaining  it  came 
from  the  association  of  pleasure  with  the  actions  which  led  to  it 
and  of  pain  with  those  which  led  away  from  it.  Thus  if  we 
came  to  set  up  honesty  as  a  virtue  it  was  because  we  found  it 
uniformly  associated  with  pleasure,  and  dishonesty  with  pain, 
just  as  we  learned  that  putting  our  hands  into  the  fire  would 
cause  pain.  The  desire  to  do .  anything  immediately  recalled 
previous  experience  with  a  similar  act,  and  according  as  it  had 
been  accompanied  by  pleasure  or  j^ain  there  was  inclination  or 
restraint  regarding  it,  and  those  actions  were  called  good  which 
conduced  to  pleasure  and  those  were  called  bad  which  conduced 
to  pain.  At  first  the  pleasures  and  pains,  being  concerned  with 
the  self-interested  actions,  would  give  rise  to  egoistic  conduct 
which  would  not  be  strictly  moral  unless  there  was  no  conflict 
with  the  interests  and  rights  of  others.  But  the  pleasures  of 
sympathy  and  the  pains  of  antipathy  would  give  rise  to  conduct 
of'  a  higher  order,  which  we  call  altruistic  and  which  is  moral 
par  excellence.  Thus  the  Avhole  range  of  morality  is  supposed  to 
be  covered  by  tlie  influence  of  association. 

(b)  The  Influence  of  Authority. — The  association  of  conduct 
with  pleasures  and  pains  does  not  account  for  all  the  elements  of 
morality  or  conscience.  The  sense  of  duty  is  a  mental  datum 
which  the  empiricist  admits  to  be  a  form  of  constraint,  that  seems 
to  oppose  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  hence  cannot  be  accounted 
for  by  association  of  pleasures  and  pains  with  the  actions  which 
it  prompts,  inasmuch  as  it  often  enjoins  the  sacrifice  of  a  pleas- 
ure and  the  endurance  of  a  pain.  Hence  in  order  to  explain 
the  origin  of  this  feeling  the  empiricist  ajipeals  to  the  influence 
of  authority  which  operates  as  some  external  force  to  limit  the 
natural  choice  of  the  individual.  It  is  a  demand  that  the  in- 
dividual conform  his  conduct  to  the  will  of  a  superior  power 
or  an  external  order  whether  he  desires  to  do  so  or  not.     The 


308  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

application  of  such  restraints  as  this  authority  implied  was  de- 
signed to  obtain  results  which  ought  to  come  from  sympathy, 
social  instinct,  and  regard  for  higher  powers.  But  since  the 
individual  is  not  always  governed  by  these  prompting  agencies, 
the  only  resource  was  to  apply  the  principle  of  rewards  and  pen- 
alties to  enforce  a  course  of  action  more  in  harmony  with  gen- 
eral interests  than  the  egoistic  instincts.  This  authority  is  of 
three  kinds — political,  social,  and  religious.  They  operate  in  the 
same  way  and  to  the  same  effect,  but  differ  in  their  mode  of 
application.  Thus  political  authority  and  restraint  prohibits 
certain  actions  like  theft,  murder,  cheating,  frauds,  and  injustice 
generally  under  appropriate  penalties.  Public  opinion  holds  a 
man  under  condemnation  who  does  not  respect  social  welfare 
and  ostracizes  him  socially  for  his  disregard  of  others,  so  as  to 
make  it  his  interest  to  adjust  his  conduct  to  suit  his  social  envi- 
ronment. Religious  sanctions  appeal  to  the  pleasure  and  dis- 
pleasure of  a  divine  being  Avith  certain  i-ewards  and  penalties 
here  and  hereafter  to  influence  the  individual's  actions.  All  of 
these  restraints  operate  to  place  a  man  in  a  struggle  between  his 
own  natural  desires  and  what  is  demanded  by  these  external 
forces.  From  this  conflict  between  what  one  must  do  and  what 
he  would  do  arises  the  sense  of  duty  which  is  the  constraint 
or  necessity  of  obeying  a  law  other  than  one's  own  desire  or 
personal  interest.  In  this  way  authority  is  supposed  to  pro- 
duce the  element  of  conscience,  which  is  more  than  the  mere 
pursuit  of  pleasure,  and  represents  enforced  adjustment  to  an 
order  to  which  the  individual  would  not  spontaneously  conform. 
The  hope  of  reward  and  the  fear  of  punishment  arc  the  motives 
to  which  authority  appeals,  so  that  duty  is  the  unwilling  pursuit 
of  an  object  which  it  is  dangerous  to  neglect  and  which  the 
individual  would  like  to  disregard  with  impunity. 

(c)  The  Influence  of  Reason. — If  authority  accounts  for  the 
feeling  of  constraint,  it  does  not  explain  the  voluntary  obedience 
of  the  will  out  of  respect  for  law  after  the  restraints  of  power  are 
removed.  Thus  parental  authority  may  be  necessary  to  obtain 
obf'diencc  and  to  form  correct  habits  in  the  child,  but   there 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  309 

comes  a  time  when  the  momentum  of  hal)it  continues  after  the 
force  of  authority  has  been  removed.  The  same  is  true  of  polit- 
ical, social,  and  religious  forces.  A  period  arrives  when  they  are 
no  longer  needed  to  induce  right  action  and  when  the  individual 
chooses  it  voluntarily  and  without  compulsion.  The  individual 
has  learned  by  this  ^time  to  respect  the  object  for  which  the 
various  forms  of  external  sanctions  were  applied.  He  has  be- 
come reconciled  to  this  purpose  and  given  up  the  struggle 
against  external  forces  to  accept  the  right  as  the  only  rational 
thing  to  be  desired.  Disobedience  is  no  longer  a  temptation 
to  him.  He  has  learned  to  love  the  right  and  to  do  it  without 
constraint  or  resistance.  Reason  has  taught  him  the  right,  and 
duty  no  longer  means  constraint  or  necessity,  but  reverence  for 
its  law,  so  that  he  now  has  a  developed  conscience  and  sense  of 
morality  with  which  he  did  not  start  in  life.  The  highest  motives 
now  take  the  place  of  the  conflict  between  duty  and  interest, 
and  obedience  to  the  former  becomes  an  act  of  love  and  respect. 

To  illustrate  this  important  development  we  may  take  a  few 
examples.  The  child  first  obeys  the  parent  because  he  fears  his 
authority,  and  afterward  when  mature  he  sees  for  himself  that 
the  course  enforced  by  authority  is  the  right  one  aud  pursues  it 
without  resistance  or  the  need  of  restraint.  The  citizen  at  first 
obeys  the  law  under  penalties  and  out  of  fear  of  them,  but  grad- 
ually learns  that  it  is  easier  to  obey  willingly  and  to  respect  its 
commands  than  it  is  to  be  perpetually  working  under  friction. 
At  first  the  religious  man  follows  the  precepts  of  the  divine 
ruler  from  motives  of  fear  and  afterward  respects  the  law  which 
at  first  constrained  his  obedience.  Reason  is  the  main  factor 
here  in  providing  enlightenment  and  in  inducing  the  individual 
to  pursue  a  course  of  voluntary  righteousness.  The  influence  of 
authority  is  lost  and  no  longer  necessary.  The  subject  becomes 
independent  of  external  restraint  and  dependent  only  upon  con- 
science thus  developed. 

2.  Arguments  against  Experientialism. — The  criticism 
of  empiricism  will  involve  a  very  careful  analysis  of  the  various 
conceptions  entering  into  the   controversy,  and  which   create 


310  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

much  coufusion  on  botli  sides.  It  will  also  seem  to  offer  a  mucli 
larger  number  of  objections  than  the  three  arguments  in  the 
defense  of  the  theory.  But  this  is  only  because  there  is  much 
confusion  as  to  its  real  meaning  and  in  regard  to  the  terms 
employed  in  discussing  it.  This  fact  will  be  brought  out  in  its 
place.     We  must  proceed  with  the  criticism. 

(a)  The  Assumption  of  Association  in  any  Case. — The  associa- 
tion of  pleasures  and  pains  with  conduct  must  be  assumed  in 
any  theory,  and  on  this  account  cannot  be  made  a  special  plea  in 
favor  of  empiricism.  No  one  has  ever  affirmed  that  pleasure  is 
not  the  proper  accompaniment  and  resultant  of  virtue  and  pain 
of  vice.  They  may  not  be  the  immediate  consequence,  but  they 
are  sure  to  follow  at  some  time  and  in  some  way,  though  we 
may  not  be  able  to  establish  the  connection  between  a  right  act 
and  some  subsequent  pleasure,  or  between  a  wrong  act  and 
some  subsequent  pain.  Moreover,  general  intuitionalism,  which 
we  have  defended,  depends  as  much  as  experientialism  upon  the 
association  of  pleasures  and  pains  with  conduct  for  the  determi- 
nation of  the  proper  means  to  ends,  so  that  association  and  ex- 
perience do  not  determine  the  rightness  of  actions  leading  to  an 
ideal  end,  but  only  their  causal  connection  with  it,  a  very  neces- 
Bary  procedure  under  any  theory. 

(i)  The  Xon-moral  Character  of  mere  Authority. — Authority 
can  do  nothing  but  appeal  to  the  motive  of  fear,  and  this  is 
not  a  moral  feeling  nor  an  element  of  conscience.  Conduct 
from  obedience  to  authority  cannot  have  more  than  an  objec- 
tively moral  character.  It  does  not  reflect  the  slightest  trace  of 
subjective  morality,  and  hence  can  effect  absolutely  nothing  in 
producing  the  fundamental  element  of  conscience,  though  it 
may  develop  the  habit  of  deliberation.  Conscience  acts  either 
from  the  constraint  of  duty  or  from  the  reverence  of  right, 
neither  of  wliich  is  found  in  the  motive  of  fuar,  to  which  every 
form  of  authority  appeals.  Authority  may  have  a  place  in  the 
attaiiiiiu  lit  of  morality  externally  considered,  l>ut  it  is  not  the  first 
nor  the  most  important  factor,  if  it  cflects  iuiytliiiiir  at  all  in  the 
moralization  of  man.     It  is  this  which  must  be  realized  in  order 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  311 

to  produce  conscience  and  its  moral  conceptions.  Empiricism  is 
under  the  delusion  that  authority  is  more  than  mere  power. 
The  term,  in  fact,  is  ambiguous.  Xow  it  denotes  mere  power 
which  is  able  to  enforce  its  will,  and  again  it  deuotes  legiti- 
macy. If  the  empiricist  uses  it  in  the  first  sense,  he  fails 
to  establish  the  genesis  of  conscience  or  moral  ideas.  If  he 
uses  it  in  the  second  sense  he  begs  the  question  by  reasoning 
in  a  circle.  Legitimate  authority  contains  the  very  morality 
which  the  empiricist  is  endeavoring  to  account  for,  while  the 
theory  requires  that  it  shall  not.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  be 
the  sense  of  authority  which  external  restraints  create,  the  case 
is  no  better.  For,  if  authority  is  taken  as  mere  power,  able  to 
make  itself  effective,  the  sense  of  it  is  only  the  sense  of  power 
that  the  individual  feels  and  he  obeys  out  of  fear.  If  it  be  the 
sense  of  legitimacy  which  the  subject  feels,  then  that  quality 
either  exists  in  the  authority  unaccounted  for  and  prior  to  its 
effect  on  the  individual,  or  it  cannot  be  produced  by  merely 
enforced  obedience,  and  simply  reflects  the  jirior  and  indepen- 
dent existence  of  that  which  authority  is  supposed  to  produce. 
At  eveiy  turn,  therefore,  the  argument  from  authority  breaks 
down,  no  matter  whether  the  authoi'ity  be  political,  social,  or 
religious,  dynamic  or  legitimate. 

(c)  The  Irrelevance  of  Benevolent  Instincts. — Symjiathy  and 
benevolence  may  be  good  impulses,  and  it  may  be  desirable  to 
have  them  rather  than  the  selfish.  But  as  long  as  they  are 
mere  instincts  the}^  do  not  enter  the  field  of  conscious  and 
rational  morality,  which  is  the  phenomenon  to  be  explained.  In 
fact,  if  instincts  of  the  benevolent  kind  were  the  whole  of  moral- 
ity, there  would  be  no  need  whatever  of  conscience.  IMoral  and 
rational  ideas  must  be  superadded  to  them  before  thej'^  can  be 
regarded  as  moral.  If  this  is  not  true,  they  are  moral  and  the 
phenomenon  of  morality  is  not  accounted  for  by  referring  it  to 
them.  The  theory  requires  that  they  shall  not  contain  the  ele- 
ments of  conscience  in  order  that  it  may  sustain  the  claim  of 
its  origin  from  their  exercise,  and  we  shall  find  that  this  assump- 
tion, too,  is  fatal   to  the  doctrine.     The  problem   is   to   know 


312  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

■whether  moral  impulses  are  modifications  of  natural  impulses 
without  the  addition  of  a  quality  which  the  latter  does  not 
account  for  by  derivation. 

(d)  The  Inconvertibility  of  Conscience  ivith  that  from  ivhich 
Empiricism  originates  it. — A  theory  of  the  genesis  of  conscience 
usually  assumes  that  the  source  from  which  it  is  derived  con- 
tains none  of  it.  Indeed  we  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  ex- 
plained its  origin  at  all,  unless  we  have  named  an  antecedent 
which  does  not  contain  it.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  does  contain 
it,  we  have  either  not  found  its  origin  or  it  is  not  what  it  is 
assumed  to  be.  Now,  empiricists  have  quite  generally  admitted 
that  conscience  or  moral  ideas  contain  elements  which  are  not 
found  in  the  sources  to  which  they  ajipeal  for  an  explanation  of 
it.  If  this  assumption  be  true,  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that 
they  can  give  it  an  origin  latei"  in  the  life  of  the  individual  than 
other  and  more  primitive  mental  states.  By  supposition,  if 
native,  moral  ideas  must  be  as  old,  that  is,  coeval  with  con- 
sciousness, either  implicitly  or  explicitly.  But  if  they  are  not, 
their  later  appearance  puts  them  on  a  level  with  the  acquired 
ideas,  and  hence  to  show  that  morality  is  felt  only  long  after  ex- 
periences in  pleasure  and  pain,  and  under  the  pressure  of 
authority,  is  to  show  that  it  is  subsequent  to  elements  containing 
none  of  it,  and  its  origin  thus  seems  to  rob  it  of  its  natural  char- 
acter. But  the  dilemma  involved  in  this  assumption  is  clear. 
On  the  one  hand,  if  the  elements  from  which  morality  is  sup- 
posed to  originate  contain  none  of  it,  it  is  impossible  to  give  it 
this  derivation,  and  if  they  do  contain  it,  either  its  origin  has 
not  l)een  determined  or  its  nature  is  tlie  same  as  its  source  and  is 
not  wliat  it  is  supposed  to  be,  namely,  diflerent  from  its  causes. 

This  criticism  ap})lios  fully  to  the  first  two  arguments  ad- 
vanced in  favor  of  experientialism.  In  tlie  first  place,  if  associa- 
tidu  (if  pleasures  and  ]);iiiis  witli  particular  acts  originates  the 
idea  of  right  and  wrong,  then  right  and  wrong  can  be  nothing 
else  than  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  and  the  avoidance  of  })ain,  or  it 
must  be  the  reflex  icaction  of  a  moral  (acuity  whicJi  represents 
more  than   this  (|uality,  and  which  has  been  set  into   action  by 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  313 

the  influence  of  those  experiences.  But  the  latter  supposition  is 
uativism,  and  the  former  contradicts  the  admitted  fact  that 
conscience  is  more  than  the  desire  of  pleasure.  Moreover,  if 
this  association  of  pleasures  and  pains  is  sufficient  to  account  for 
conscience,  it  is  absurd  to  appeal  to  the  influence  of  authority, 
which  must  either  assume  that  other  motives  are  necessary  or 
wholly  abandon  its  argument.  In  the  second  pLace,  the  same 
dilemma  appears  in  the  argument  from  authority.  Power, 
such  as  authority  is,  either  contains  the  morality  which  it  origi- 
nates or  it  does  not.  If  it  contains  it,  the  origin  of  it  is  not 
determined ;  if  it  does  not  contain  it,  then  morality  cannot  be 
derived  from  it,  though  elicited  by  it,  and  the  mystery  of  its 
origin  is  as  great  as  ever. 

It  should  be  again  remarked  that  morality  must  lie  at  the 
basis  of  all  authority  or  no  other  motive  can  be  evoked  by  it 
than  fear,  inasmuch  as  it  is,  without  this  moral  basis,  nothing 
but  the  exercise  of  sheer  power.  In  the  former  case  its  origin  is 
not  proved,  and  in  the  latter  it  does  not  exist.  Conscience  must 
exist  behind  authority  or  it  cannot  evoke  moral  obedience,  and 
if  it  is  not  rendered  legitimate  by  a  moral  purpose  there  can 
never  arise  the  moral  obligation  to  obey  it.  We  might  submit 
to  it  as  to  a  superior  power,  but  we  should  never  feel  that  its 
commands  deserved  respect.  The  sense  of  duty  arises  only 
when  we  see  that  the  authority  is  moral,  and  if  it  be  moral  that 
quality  already  exists  before  its  exercise  and  before  it  is  sup- 
posed to  originate  in  the  consciousness  of  those  who  obey  it. 
In  other  words,  moi'al  consciousness  has  to  exist  before  author- 
ity can  originate  it  in  any  one  else,  and  hence  authority  does 
not  absolutely  originate  it.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  does  not 
exist  with  the  exercise  of  authority  there  can  be  no  absolute 
duty  to  obey  it.  Prudence  might  dictate  submission  to  its 
power,  but  conscience  would  never  recognize  its  legitimacy  and 
the  sense  of  duty  would  have  no  reason  for  existence.  The  fact 
is  that  conscience  is  a  precondition  of  knowing  the  legitimacy 
which  reason  comes  to  respect,  and  cannot  be  originated  by  that 
which  is  its  object. 


314  ELE3IENTS  OF  ETHICS 

(e)    The  Incompcdihility  of  the   Third  with  the  First  and  Sec- 
ond Arguments. — The  introductiou  of  reason  to  supply  the  sense 
of  respect  for  haw,  which  is  a  most  important  element  of  con- 
science, is  an  admission  that  neither  the  association  of  j^leasures 
and  pains  nor  the  influence  of  authority  can  produce  conscience. 
^yhat  the  empiricist  fails  to  see  here  is  the  distinction  between 
subjective  and  objective,  morality,  the  latter  of  which  may  be 
attained   by  any  motive  whatever,  and  the  former  only  by  con- 
scientiousness or  good  will,  which  involves  the  existence  of  con- 
science to  begin  with.     The  association  of  pleasures  and  pains 
with  particular  actions,   and  the  exercise  of  authority  which 
appeals  to  these  very  motives,  may  effect  the  realization  of  ex- 
ternal morality,  but  they  cannot  produce  internal  morality,  and 
it  is  an  admission  of  the  fact  to  resort  to  reason  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  an  element  in  conscience  which  they  cannot  supply. 
But  this  appeal  to  reason,  as  finally  acquiescing  in  the  regula- 
tions of  political,  social,   and   religious  authority,  is  a  petitio 
principii  if  it  is  meant  to  oppose  intuitionalism.     For  reason  is 
precisely  the  source  to  which  the  nativist  resorts,  and  as  loug  as 
this  is  admitted  to  be  a  natural  function  of  the  subject  we  may 
say  what  we  please   about  its   relation  to  moral  conceptions. 
They  Avill  be  quite  as  native  as  the  faculty  whose  function  they 
are,  and  to  use  it  as  the  final  resort  of  empiricism  is  a  subrep- 
tion of  the  worst  kind,  involving  the  assumption  of  intuition 
without  admitting  it.     Moreover,  the  reverence  for  moral  law 
and  authority,  which  is  undoubtedly  an  element  of  conscience, 
but   cannot   be  produced   by  any  external   influence,  is   more 
than  the  iustinctive  desire  for  pleasure  and  aversion  to  pain. 
For  this  reason  it  cannot  be  the  expression  of  anything  but 
natural  powers  of  the  individual,  and  as  intuitionalism  does  not 
depend  for  its  truth  upon  the  time  when  conscience  manifests 
itself,  or  when  the  sense  of  duty  becomes  effective,  it  is  clear 
that  experience  cannot  originate  it  in  any  but  the  first  sense  of 
the  term,  not  being  able  to  [jroduce  any  increment  that  is  not 
found  in  the  proper  exercise  of  reason, 

(/)   The  Equivocal  Import  of  the   Teiin  "  Origin." — The  di- 


THE  ORIGIX  OF  CONSCIENCE  315 

lemma  of  empiricism,  which  has  already  been  discussed,  is 
created  largely  by  the  equivocation  lurking  in  the  term 
"  origin,"  which  has  two  distinct  meanings.  The  first  of  these 
denotes  a  beginning  in  time  and  refers  the  event  or  phenomenon 
having  an  initium  to  a  cause  containing  none  of  it.  This  is  the 
efficient  cause  (causa  efficiens,  ratio  fiendi)  and  is  external  to 
the  event  pfoduced.  An  illustration  of  such  a  cause  is  sunshine 
causing  the  growth  of  vegetation,  the  stroke  of  a  hammer  caus- 
ing an  indenture  in  some  substance,  the  death  of  an  individual 
by  a  bullet,  the  destruction  of  an  object  by  a  cannon-ball  or  ex- 
plosion, the  effect  of  cold  air  upon  the  clouds  to  cause  a  rainfall, 
etc.  The  second  meaning  is  that  of  derivation  or  dependence  of 
a  fact  upon  something  containing  it.  This  is  logical  participa- 
tion or  metaphysical  origin,  and  the  antecedent  or  condition  of 
the  thing  whose  nature  and  derivation  is  desired  is  called  the 
material  cause  (causa  materialis,  ratio  essendi).  As  illustrations 
we  may  instance  the  "  origin "  or  derivation  of  benevolence 
from  sympathy,  of  personal  interest  from  the  pursuit  of  pleasure, 
of  murder  from  inhumanity,  geometrical  figures  from  space  re- 
lations, particular  from  general  truths,  etc.  Or,  again,  the 
morality  of  honesty,  of  earnestness,  of  truthfulness  originates  in 
the  end  which  they  subserve,  and  the  policy  of  a  government 
originates  from  the  motives  which  it  has  in  serving  the  people. 
All  these  and  many  other  similar  cases  show  how  the  character- 
istics of  any  particular  fact  are  derived,  or  as  we  may  say, 
have  their  "  origin,"  from  the  general  class  of  phenomena  of 
which  the  particular  act  is  a  species  or  an  illustration. 

It  is  the  difference  between  these  two  meanings  which  gives 
rise  to  much  of  the  confusion  of  the  problem  and  its  discussion. 
In  examining  the  origin  of  conscience  we  have  two  problems. 
The  first  is  its  historical  origin  in  time,  subsequent  to  events 
without  which  presumably  it  would  not  appear,  and  the  second 
is  the  derivation  of  its  contents,  the  general  psychological  phe- 
nomena which  constitute  it.  In  order  to  prove  its  claims  empir- 
icism must  show  that  conscience  is  a  new  event  in  the  course  of 
development,  that  it  has  not  been  simultaneous  with  or  ante- 


316  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

cedent  to  ccrttiiu  other  events  presumably  naturul  and  yet  not 
containing  conscience.  "N'ow,  it  finds  the  association  of  pleasures 
and  pains  with  conduct  and  the  influence  of  authority  prior  to 
any  voluntary  recognition  of  moral  law  and  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  appearance  of  it,  and  hence  it  assigns  con- 
science, iihenomenally  considered,  of  course,  an  "origin"  in 
time  later  than  the  primary  elements  of  consciousness.  This  is 
probably  true.  We  can  go  farther  and  say  that  we  think  it  is 
true.  But  it  is  no  answer  to  the  claim  of  the  intuitionist  whose 
position  does  not  rest  upon  the  innateness  of  conscience  (tran- 
scendentally  considered),  though  he  is  privileged  to  maintain 
this  while  also  holding  that  the  manifestation  of  it  may  be  late 
in  the  history  of  consciousness,  but  it  rests  more  especially  upon 
the  immediacy,  the  universality,  and  the  necessity  of  its  judg- 
ments ivhen  it  is  manifested.  Experience,  pleasure,  and  pain, 
and  authority  could  not  have  a  common  effect  were  there  not  a 
common  consciousness  to  appreciate  them.  It  is  apparent  from 
this  mode  of  argument  that  expcrientialism  and  intuitionalism 
are  not  opposed  to  each  other  in  this  the  first  sense  of  the  term 
origin.  Expcrientialism  simply  refers  to  the  condltiom  of  the 
manifestation  of  conscience  and  intuitionalism  to  the  character- 
istics of  it  and  the  mode  of  its  manifestation. 

In  regard  to  the  second  meaning  of  the  term  "  origin,"  empir- 
icism utterly  fails  to  give  the  derivation  of  conscience,  as  its  o\vii 
argument  practically  confesses,  unless  it  means  to  dissolve  it 
into  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  and  the  fear  of  authority.  This 
would  be  an  "  origin  "  for  it  which  could  be  disproved  only  by 
showing  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  conscience  contained  other 
elements  than  the  two  mentioned.  But  empiricism  helps  at  its 
own  destruction  by  admitting  that  conscience  contains  elements 
which  are  not  fijund  in  the  phenomena  from  which  it  is 
presumably  derived.  Nothing'  is  clearer  than  the  general 
maxim  that  an  object  or  thing  cannot  be  evolved  from  that 
whicli  contains  none  of  it,  unless  we  are  going  to  admit 
the  special  creation  theory,  wliich  the  em})iricist  never  does. 
Now,    if  conscience    can    be    derived    from    elements   not    con- 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  817 

taining   it,  there   is  uo  reason  to  limit  tliem   to   pleasure   and 
fear,  and  if  it  cannot  be  so  derived,  there   is   also   no    reason 
to  resort  to  these  elements,  and  we  are  left  to  certain  mental 
functions  to  explain  its  "  origin  "  or  manifestation.     The  only 
remaining   question   is   whether   the    faculty  exhibiting   moral 
phenomena  is  a  natural  one  or  not,  or  whether  these  phenomena 
are  creations  of  empirical  causes  or  not.     No  one  is  so  hardy  as 
to  maintain  this.     The  faculty  exists  and  circumstances  have 
only  stimulated  it  into  activity.     The  phenomena  of  conscience 
are  thus  natural  with  the  characteristics  claimed  for  them  by 
the  general  intuitionalist,  though  the  empiricist  be  right  in  the 
claim  that  they  do  not  appear  until  instigated  by  the  causes  to 
which  he  refers  them.     We  find,  then,  by  this  analysis,  that  the 
two  theories  occupy  two  entirely  distinct  fields  wholly  unopposed 
to  each  other,  and  they  only  appear  so  when  their  advocates  are 
under  the  illusion  occasioned  by  the  equivocation  of  the  terra 
"  origin."    Empiricism  correctly  surmises  a  set  of  influences  which 
do  not  contain  conscience  or  moral  phenomena,  but  which  act 
as  instigating  causes  of  their  historical  appearance,  but  decides 
nothing  about  their  nativity,  which  is  not  dependent  wholly 
upon  an  existence  coeval  with  elementary  consciousness.    On  the 
other  hand,  intuitionalism  demands  an  "  origin  "  from  elements 
containing  what  conscience  represents,  but  is  not  concerned  with 
its  historical  genesis,  the  two  theories  coming  into  conflict  only 
when  one  assumes  to  perform  the  functions  of  the  other.     Be- 
sides this,  empiricism,  as*  already  remarked,  is  wholly  correct  in 
its   explanation    of  particular   moral    conceptions,  the   explicit 
knowledge  of  them  and  of  general  principles  and  of  the  exten- 
sion of  morality,  while  intuitionalism  must  surrender  this  field. 
Beyond  this,  however,  the  intuitionalist  is  as  unquestionably 
correct  in  regard  to  the  underived  character  of  general  moral 
principles  and  the  impossibility  of  giving  them  an  empirical 
"  origin." 

(g)  Confusion  from  the  Conception  of  Experience. — INIany 
persons  are  the  victims  in  this  discussion  of  the  etymological 
import  of  the   term   "  a  priori^     Intuitive  knowledge  is  often 


318  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

called  a  j^riori  because  it  can  be  determined  from  premises  al- 
ready known  and  without  waiting  until  tlie  facts  take  place  in 
"  experience."  Thus  I  may  infer  a  priori  from  the  law  of  grav- 
itation that  a  stone  will  fall  to  the  ground,  if  unsupported, 
without  waiting  to  see  it  fall.  This  is  called  a  priori  knowledge 
because  it  anticipates  the  perception  (experience)  of  its  actual 
occurrence,  though  it  may  not  anticipate  all  "  experience " 
whatsoever.  But  it  is  often  defined  as  if  it  were  prior  to  every 
form  of  experience,  though  it  is  prior  to  only  one  form  of  it.  The 
two  meanings  to  which  we  have  already  referred  are  primary 
perceptions  or  any  realization  in  consciousness,  and  collective 
events  with  an  increment  at  the  end  not  found  at  the  beginning. 
The  former  is  a  direct  perception  of  a  fact  requiring  but  one 
trial  to  determine  its  truth,  such  as  a  burn,  a  sound,  a  sensation 
of  color,  occurrence  of  an  accident,  or  the  consciousness  of  any 
event  whatever ;  the  latter  involves  repetition  under  various 
conditions  to  verify  a  supposition  made,  or  to  establish  the  gen- 
eral character  of  a  law  or  truth,  as  the  merits  of  a  democracy, 
the  correct  judgment  of  size  and  distance,  the  law  of  the  tides, 
the  uniformity  of  connection  between  any  given  act  and  a  cer- 
tain effect,  the  effect  of  wet  weather  upon  the  state  of  vegetation, 
etc.  Now,  it  is  evident  that  an  a  priori  or  intuitive  truth  cannot 
be  perceived  prior  to  "  experience "  in  tlie  first  sense  of  that 
term,  because  they  are  identical  in  their  meaning.  Realization 
in  consciousness  and  intuition  are  the  same,  and  a  priori  denotes 
tlie  same,  witli  also  at  times,  especiirily  in  the  Kantian  sys- 
tem, the  added  idea  of  sul)jective  and  necessary  action  of  the 
mind.  In  this  sense  it  expresses  what  is  a  law  of  thouglit,  a 
condition  of  experience,  and  so  i)rior  to  every  form  of  it.  But 
as  a])i)lied  to  the  act  of  mind  ])erceiving  a  truth  it  is  not 
prior  t(j  expeiience  lus  an  immediate  j)ereej)tion.  But  as  a})- 
l)licd  to  the  elementary  mental  perceptions  it  is  and  must  be 
jtiioi-  to  "experience"  in  tlic  second  sense,  which  was  the  only 
meaning  given  tlie  term  by  Aristotle  and  probalily  Greek  thouglit 
generally,  while  the  jihrase  "antecedent  to  experience,"  which 
has  figured  .so  generally  as  a  definition  oi"  "a  priori"  has  been 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  319 

intended  either  for  this  meaning  alone  or  for  those  conditions 
of  experience  which  are  merely  the  laws  or  capacities  rather 
than  the  actions  of  consciousness.  .  Hence  it  was  only  after  the 
Aristotelean  conception  of  experience  had  been  changed,  prob- 
ably from  the  influence  of  Locke,  to  include  immediate  percep- 
tion not  requiring  repetition  or  verification,  that  the  notion  of 
"  antecedence  to  exiierience,"  as  applied  to  a  positive  state  of 
consciousness,  came  to  seem  absurd.  But  those  cognitions  which 
carry  their  own  evidence  with  them  when  once  perceived,  such 
as  every  cause  must  have  an  effect,  or  vice  versa,  two  and  two 
make  four,  things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  each 
other,  etc.,  will  always  antecede  the  repeated  or  various  "  experi- 
ences" Avhich  may  illustrate  them,  or  such  "experiences"  as 
afford  no  positive  conviction  of  any  truth  other  than  the  facts  of 
consciousness  themselves.  Now,  moral  convictions  belong  to 
this  class  of  cognitions  and  perceptions ;  that  is,  the  subjective, 
not  the  objective,  elements  of  morality.  They  do  not  require 
rej)etition  to  verify  them  or  to  determine  their  value  and  imper- 
ativeness, while  the  objective  do  require  it.  Hence  empiricism 
may  explain  the  origin  of  our  conception  of  the  particulars  of 
objective  morality  by  showing  the  gradual  growth  of  them  in 
consciousness,  but  does  not  explain  by  the  same  process  the 
appearance,  tenacity,  firmness,  and  universality  of  the  subjective 
elements. 

(Ji)  Contradiction  of  Its  Anti-theological  Argument. — This  ob- 
jection is  only  ad  homineni  and  applies  only  to  the  skeptical 
empiricist.  Experientialists  are  usually  skeptics  in  regard  to 
the  theory  which  refers  the  origin  of  morality  to  the  will  of 
God.  In  criticising  this  doctrine  they  emphasize  the  absurdity 
of  having  morality  dependent  upon  mere  will,  or  the  fiat  of 
arbitrary  power,  which  is  the  same  as  authority.  But  then 
when  proposing  its  derivation  from  experience  the  same  persons 
appeal  to  authority,  political  and  social,  to  account  for  it.  This 
contradiction  is  very  noticeable  in  the  system  of  ]Mr.  Spencer. 
He  ridicules  the  doctrine  of  Jonathan  Dymond,  who  thought 
that  God  could  have   reversed  the  character  of  virtue  and  vice 


320  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

bad  lie  clioseu  to  do  so,  and  then  proposes  political,  social,  and 
religious  restraints  as  determining  influences  in  the  production 
both  of  morality  and  moral  consciousness.  These  restraints  are 
nothing  but  the  exercise  of  authority,  which,  as  we  have  already 
shown,  must  be  either  nothing  but  the  exercise  of  power — that 
is,  superior  strength — or  legitimate  power.  The  last  of  these,  as 
we  have  seen,  begs  the  question  and  the  former  contradicts  the 
criticism  of  the  theological  doctrine.  One  or  the  other  claim 
must  be  given  up.  We  cannot  reject  the  authority  of  God  in 
one  relation  and  set  it  up  to  do  the  same  thing  in  another,  and 
much  less  can  we  reject  divine  authority  to  substitute  human 
authority  for  effecting  what  the  will  of  God  cannot  do. 

There  may  be  empiricists,  however,  who  do  not  deny  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  theological  theory,  and  against  them  this  criticism 
will  not  apply.  The  previous  argument  is  all  that  is  relevant  to 
their  claims. 

(i)  General  Facts  of  Human  Experience. — All  the  objections 
to  experientialism  have  been  designed  to  apply  only  to  the 
experience  of  the  individual,  though  some  of  the  arguments  in 
favor  of  the  theory  are  used  in  support  of  evolution.  Whether 
relevant  or  not  to  evolution  we  do  not  care  to  say  at  present. 
We  wish  only  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  we  are  now  only  crit- 
icising the  supposition  that  moral  conceptions  and  conscience  can 
be  produced  by  the  experience  of  the  individual  and  do  not 
require  the  experience  of  the  race  for  the  effect.  This  doctrine 
was  the  universal  one  among  empiricists  until  evolution  was 
advanced.  It  is  sufficient  to  observe  that  it  is  now  quite  as 
universally  abandoned  for  that  of  development,  which  admits  tlie 
nativity  of  conscience  and  moral  distinctions  for  the  rationally 
developed  man  of  to-day,  but  distrilnites  the  experience  that 
produces  them  over  the  bistory  of  the  race.  This  abandonment 
of  it  sinqtly  (■()iifirius  the  force  of  tlie  objections  above  made  to 
it,  and  the  justification  of  that  aljandunnient  is  found  in  the  evi- 
dence (jf  natural  niDrality  and  <if  tlie  existence  of  conscience 
among  even  the  most  degraded  sijcciincns  of  the  human  race. 
Conscience  a])pears  so  quickly  in  many  individuals,  and  so  often 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  321 

appears  where  there  has  becu  no  experience  worth  mentioning, 
that  it  is  easier  to  suppose  it  merely  latent  and  inefficient  than 
to  invoke  the  precarious  influence  of  association  and  the  fear  of 
authority  to  account  for  it.  It  is  so  universal  in  some  measure 
of  its  exercise  where  experience  is  very  slight,  and  so  variously 
developed  and  ineffective  where  experience,  associatiou,  and 
authority  have  been  abundant,  that  it  is  easier  to  suppose  it  a 
native  function,  and  that  it  is  only  the  range  of  its  application 
and  efficiency  which  are  influenced  by  experience. 

2d.  Evolutionism. — As  we  have  already  remarked,  this  theory 
endeavors  to  account  for  the  faculty  of  conscience  as  well  as  its 
mode  of  action,  inasmuch  as  it  assumes  that  jt  is  developed 
from  an  order  of  beings  who  were  wholly  without  it.  It  is  a 
deliberate  attempt  to  bridge  the  chasm  between  man  and  the 
animals,  morally  as  well  as  physically.  It  is  thus  much  more 
radical  in  its  empirical  character  than  simple  experientialism 
and  has  the  advantage  of  appealing  to  periods  of  time  which 
might  account  for  much  and  whose  influence  an  opponent  is 
powerless  to  confute  for  the  lack  of  data,  and  of  the  possibility 
of  obtaining  them,  to  make  out  a  case.  The  arguments  for  it 
are  the  same  as  those  for  experientialism,  though  they  receive 
appropriate  and  supplementary  additions.  For  this  reason  it 
will  not  be  necessary  to  cover  the  ground  -so  exhaustively,  but 
only  to  examine  the  additional  facts  upon  which  it  depends,  and 
in  a  general  topic  give  our  own  conclusions  regarding  the  doc- 
trine. In  the  meantime  an  examination  of  Spencer  and  Darwin 
may  serve  for  criticism.  The  following  will  be  the  arguments 
for  evolution  in  addition  to  those  for  experientialism,  which  is 
confined  to  the  life  of  the  individual,  and  are  here  summarized 
without  comment : 

1.  Facts  in  Support  of  Evolution. — These  refer  to  in- 
fluences which  first  aflTect  the  life  and  thought  of  the  individual 
and  are  through  him  transmitted  to  the  race  and  become  perma- 
nent elements  in  the  constitution  of  developed  individuals  in  the 
later  periods  of  history. 

(a)  Adjustment  to  Environment. — This  is  adaptation  to  all  the 


322  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

external  influences  which  may  impose  any  limitations  upon  the 
liberty  and  caprices  of  the  individual,  and  comprises  the  effect 
of  association  of  jDleasures  and  pains,  obedience  to  authority, 
political,  social,  and  religious,  and  rational  acquiescence  in  these 
limitations.  jMan  finds  himself  in  a  universe  where  he  must 
adjust  himself  to  its  conditions  of  climate,  temperature,  food,  and 
his  own  physical  wants.  Then  others  demand  equal  rights  with 
himself  and  political  and  social  restraints  are  imposed  in  order 
to  make  each  individual  respect  those  rights.  All  these  require 
very  careful  adjustment,  physical,  political,  social,  and  moral,  on 
tlie  part  of  each  individual.  They  impress  a  certain  imiformity 
of  conduct,  such  as  environment  may  require  for  survival  or  for 
the  attainment  of  welfare,  and  bring  the  individual  will  under 
law  and  order,  subjecting  it  to  other  ends  than  its  own  caprices. 
The  effect  w  the  attainment  of  objective  morality. 

(b)  The  Influence  of  Habit. — This  fact  is  the  first  that  distinc- 
tively favors  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  Habit  is  persistency  in 
a  certain  course  of  conduct,  and  however  it  may  be  exj^lained,  it 
takes  on  a  quasi-mechanical  character.  It  always  represents, 
after  it  is  formed,  the  line  of  least  resistance,  and  seems  to  efi^ect 
a  sort  of  organic  or  constitutional  change  in  the  nature  of  the 
subject,  such  as  prompts  him  to  act  in  that  direction  rather  than 
in  a  new  one.  Thus  the  man  who  has  been  in  the  habit  of  reg- 
uhuly  attending  to  his  business  becomes  so  fixed  in  his  ways  that 
he  will  continue  to  frequent  his  old  places  of  activity  long  after 
he  has  retired  from  the  life  requiring  it,  and  when  there  is  no 
reason  but  habit  to  account  for  it.  The  habits  of  city  life  often 
render  it  very  diflScult,  if  not  impossible,  to  draft  off"  the  inhab- 
itants into  a  rural  environment.  Those  thoroughly  accustomed 
to  tlie  country  feel  out  of  place  in  the  city.  Habits  of  commer- 
cial business  unfit  a  man,  in  some  cases,  for  an  intellectual  life, 
and  vice  verm,  and  always  make  it  more  difficult.  Intemper- 
ance becomes  a  fixed  habit  which  scarcely  any  influence  can 
overcome.  Vfjluptuousness  may  .so  enslave  an  individual  that  he 
will  commit  suicide  in  a  reverse  of  fi)rtune  rather  than'adjust  him- 
self to  a  new  environment.    These  are  all  special  and  clear  illus- 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  COXSCIEXCE  323 

trations  of  the  organic  effects  of  habit.  The  effects  are  probably 
the  same  for  every  form  of  habit,  good  or  bad,  though  they  may 
not  be  so  marked  nor  so  fixed.  They  always  render  action  along 
their  line  more  easy  and  in  that  way  create  physical  and  mental 
tendencies  in  the  individual  that  are  very  like  a  faculty  and 
certainly  strengthen  and  give  supremacy  over  others  "to  those 
which  are  specially  active,  while  inactive  impulses  fall  into  dis- 
use and  decay.  Moral  habits  in  this  way  acquire  efficiency  to 
suppress  the  lower  impulses  and  to  keep  them  in  subjection, 
while  making  it  easier  to  adjust  oneself  to  environment  and 
strengthening  their  tendency  to  rule  life  and  to  become  a  perma- 
nent constitutional  element  of  the  subject. 

(c)  The  InflueMce  of  Heredity. — Habit  can  do  nothing  but 
create  a  more  or  less  permanent  tendency  to  act  along  the  line 
of  least  resistance  and  to  give  strength  and  supremacy  to  some 
particular  impulse  in  the  individual.  But  this  capacity  dies 
with  the  individual  and  is  lost,  unless  there  be  some  means 
of  handing  it  on  to  the  next  generation.  Well,  heredity  accom- 
plishes this  feat.  The  qualities  of  ofispring  are  acquired  from 
the  parent.  This  is  evident  in  the  apparent  permanency  of  the 
species.  If  any  modifications  take  j^lace  they  are  very  gradual, 
as  evolutionists  admit.  But  the  passage  from  parent  to  offspring 
is  so  fixed  that  the  same  form,  structure,  capacities,  wants,  and 
actions  are  always  expected  and  found  from  generation  to  gener- 
ation, with  only  such  changes  as  may  be  accounted  for  by 
adjustment,  habit,  and  inherited  increments.  This  is  only  the 
general  fact,  and  it  remains  to  ascertain  whether  the  influence  of 
habit  on  the  individual  can  be  inherited,  whether  the  fixed  way 
of  acting,  which  Carlyle  calls  habit,  in  the  ancestor,  can  become  a 
predisposition  or  line  of  least  resistance  in  posterity.  The  evolu- 
tionist holds  that  it  can,  and  it  does  not  matter  here  whether  we 
hold  with  Weissmanu  that  acquired  characters  are  not  inherited 
or  Avhether  we  affirm  that  they  arc  inherited.  For  we  have  only 
to  suppose  that  the  exercise  of  a  function  as  shown  in  habit  in- 
creases the  power  of  the  capacity  connected  with  it,  as  an 
inherent  quality  of  the  individual,  and   reduces  the  action  of 


324  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

others  in  order  to  conform  to  Weissmann's  demands.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  habit  as  an  acquired  activity  can  appear  in 
posterity  as  a  predisposition  in  the  same  direction,  the  case 
is  also  made  out.  It  is  only  a  question  whether  habit  expresses 
only  an  acquired  character  or  both  an  inherent  capacity  ren- 
dered more  efficient  and  an  acquired  character,  and  it  does  not 
require  us  to  settle  which  it  means.  In  either  instance  we  can 
expect  an  increment  from  generation  to  generation  which  may 
result  in  wide  divergencies  after  the  lapse  of  long  periods  and 
variations  of  environment  and  experience.  In  this  way  habits 
of  adjustment  may  become  fixed  tendencies  in  one  generation  and 
a  predisposition  of  an  organic  character  in  the  next,  with  a 
tendency  to  greater  supremacy  and  the  atrophy  of  competing 
impulses  and  functions.  Moral  qualities  may  gradually  arise 
as  they  become  useful  and  dominant  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
subject,  their  tendency  to  development  and  permanence  increas- 
ing with  their  exercise  and  their  efficiency  in  supplanting  non- 
moral  instincts. 

(d)  The  Influence  of  Natural  Selection. — Natural  selection  ex- 
presses the  tendency  to  survive  of  those  individuals  who  best 
adjust  themselves  to  environment,  and  Avho  cultivate  those 
qualities  which  are  most  useful  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
For  instance,  a  due  regard  to  the  incidents  of  pleasure  and  pain 
will  produce  or  favor  the  best  physical  conditions  for  competing 
with  external  forces.  Obedience  to  authority  will  favor  tlie 
individual  who  obeys,  by  giving  him  various  advantages  con- 
nected with  improved  living,  and  every  habit  which  serves  to  per- 
fect a  man  will  tend  to  secure  him  survival  against  less  favored 
competitors,  just  as  the  supremacy  of  one  impulse  secures  its  sur- 
vival against  others.  Hence,  the  utility  of  moral  conceptions 
would  show  itself  in  securing  them  supremacy  and  survival. 
The  man  who  practices  i)rudencc  would  outbid  the  sclf-indiilgent 
man  and  leave  behind  him  more  and  better  progeny  for  the  next 
generation,  with  fewer  handicapping  tendencies.  Then  higher 
moral  conceptions  with  the  superior  advantages  conferred  ])y 
them,  with  the  attractions  of  character  Avhich  they  present  to  all 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  325 

who  admire  them,  and  with  everything  to  encourage  the  selection 
of  the  individuals  possessing  them  for  building  up  the  social  or- 
ganism, would  tend  to  propagate  themselves  more  readily  than 
those  which  are  less  adjusted  to  environment.  Those  possessing 
lower  impulses  would  tend  to  disappear,  and  there  would  finally 
be  left  only  those  who  showed  the  most  prudence  and  the  best 
conscience,  indicating  their  adjustment  to  the  conditions  which 
will  encourage  nothing  else.  In  this  way  that  process  of  elimi- 
nation of  the  bad  and  selection  of  the  good  goes  on,  which  results 
in  the  universality  of  moral  consciousness  as  it  is  observed  to-day, 
except  in  those  cases  which  are  reversions  to  more  primitive 
types.  But  natural  selection  tends  to  confer  all  the  rewards  of 
existence  upon  the  best  and  strongest  individuals,  and  to  pro- 
duce that  uniformity  of  character  which  seems  so  much  in  favor 
of  intuitionalism.  It  adds  to  the  influence  of  heredity  a  discrim- 
inating tendency  in  favor  of  the  best,  and  against  the  worst,  thus 
economizing  and  improving  the  resources  of  nature,  and  accom- 
plishing the  progress  which  evolution  represents.  Moral  concep- 
tions are  only  one  of  the  many  factors  represented  in  this 
survival,  but  are  the  best  and  ripest  fruit  of  that  mysterious 
process  which  we  are  only  beginning  to  fathom  and  in  which,  in 
his  reverence  for  them,  man  has  thought  to  find  traces  of  the  di- 
vine workmanship. 

2.  Darwin's  View  of  Conscience  and  its  Evolution. — 
Darwin's  account  of  the  origin  of  conscience  is  interesting  as 
showing  the  weakness  of  the  whole  doctrine,  as  it  is  usually  pre- 
sented, though  he  deserves  the  credit  of  implying  that  it  is  a  com- 
plex faculty  or  group  of  phenomena.  But  his  analysis  is  very 
imperfect,  and  his  explanation  of  its  genesis  exposes  his  doc- 
trine to  all  the  criticisms  of  which  the  opponent  of  evolution 
is  so  eager  to  avail  himself  "We  shall  state  and  examine  his 
theory. 

Darwin  regards  conscience  as  a  modified  social  instinct.  Duty 
and  respect  for  law  are  but  impulses  directed  by  that  instinct.  It 
develops  into  the  form  known  as  conscience  in  the  fallowing 
manner :   First  there  is  the  exercise  of  mutual  sympathy  among 


326  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

animals,  due  to  incipient,  social  instincts,  as  illustrated  in  gre- 
gariousness,  tribal  solidarity,  and  natural  affections.  The  devel- 
opment of  the  mental  faculties  in  the  same  connection  would  be 
accompanied  by  the  memory  of  past  actions,  with  the  satisfaction 
that  social  impulses  would  yield,  and  the  dissatisfaction  yielded 
by  the  less  social  instincts.  These  would  avail  to  encourage  the 
social  impulses  and  to  give  them  the  efficiency  and  supremacy 
which  favor  survival.  Then  when  language  was  perfected  pub- 
lic opinion  could  add  its  influence  to  social  agencies  of  the 
natural  kind.  Sympathy  and  authority  would  supplement  each 
other  to  overcome  purely  egoistic  influences.  Habit  would 
strengthen  sympathy  and  overcome  the  resistance  implied  in  the 
fear  of  authority,  and  gradually  give  rise  to  respect  for  the  end 
to  which  it  was  adjusted.  By  these  processes  the  altruistic  in- 
stincts Avould  conquer  the  egoistic  and  become  more  permanent. 
The  sense  of  duty  arises  in  the  struggle  for  supremacy  between 
these  two  different  impulses,  though  it  is  not  found  in  the  order 
of  existence  until  we  reach  num. 

This  doctrine  is  very  clearly  stated  by  Darwin,  along  with  con- 
fessions which  very  much  mar  its  consistency.  The  criticism  of 
it  will  bring  out  its  defects  and  show  more  clearly  what  the  real 
problem  is,  which  will  be  found  to  differ  very  much  from  the 
conception  of  Mr.  Darwin. 

In  the  first  place,  conscience  gets  its  name  from  the  fact  that 
it  is  more  than  a  social  instinct,  more  than  both  instinct  and  so- 
ciality, and  it  would  not  get  the  name  were  it  not  more  than  this. 
Hence  its  origin  is  not  accounted  for  until  this  new  element  is 
derived.  In  order  to  derive  it  from  elements  found  in  the  lower 
order  of  existence,  Darwin  should  specify  more  than  social  in- 
stinct there,  and  that  might  be  to  merely  abandon  the  question  of 
origin.  Social  instincts,  as  instincts,  may  give  rise  to  objective 
morality,  but  they  can  do  nothing  more.  It  is  only  when  they 
arc  rationalized  that  they  can  be  called  moral,  and  they  cannot 
be  rationalized  until  reason  is  already  in  existence.  But  the 
fatal  criticism  to  Darwin's  theory  is  his  admission  that  the  essen- 
tial element  of  a  moral  sense  is  the  comparison  of  past  and  future 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  327 

actions  aud  motives,  and  that  auimals  do  not  show  any  traces  of 
a  disposition  to  make  such  a  comparison.  If  conscience  is  devel- 
oped from  animal  intelligence,  we  should  find  the  elements  of  it 
there,  and  if  animals  do  not  show  any  traces  of  them,  they  either 
do  not  exist  tliere  or  are  a  new  character  in  man  not  referable 
to  the  process  of  evolution.  The  use  made  of  language  and  pub- 
lic opinion  is  wholly  irrelevant,  as  they  can  only  render  more 
efficient  the  functions  already  existing,  but  cannot  originate  them. 
Indeed  the  very  reference  to  them  as  agents  in  the  result  proves 
his  entire  misunderstanding  of  the  problem  and  his  tendency  to 
confuse  "origin  "  with  evolution.  This  is  still  more  evident  in  the 
admission  that  the  essential  element  of  conscience  is  not  found 
among  animals,  but  is  distinctly  human,  which  only  makes  it  a 
new  factor,  whose  origin  is  either  wholly  unaccounted  for  or 
must  be  referred  to  the  theory  of  special  creation,  which  is  the 
very  doctrine  Darwin  would  set  aside. 

In  discussing  Darwin's  theory  of  the  origin  of  moral  sense  and 
conscience,  however,  we  must  remember  that  it  does  not  profess 
to  be  exhaustive,  but  is  only  a  tentative  effort  to  account  for  the 
very  factor  which  opponents  of  the  general  doctrine  maintained 
was  sufficient  to  make  an  impassable  chasm  between  man  and 
brute.  Had  it  not  been  that  he  tacitly  conceded  their  main  con- 
tention, the  use  of  social  instincts  and  the  struggle  between  al- 
truistic and  egoistic  impulses,  Avith  the  consequent  sense  of  duty 
incident  to  that  conflict,  would  have  rendered  a  very  fair  account 
of  the  matter  by  minimizing  the  distance  between  the  two  orders 
of  existence,  upon  which  the  opponents  of  evolution  relied  in  or- 
der to  make  out  their  case.  But  that  concession  was  a  fatal 
weakness,  and  the  whole  argument  is  an  illustration  of  the  need 
of  more  careful  analysis  of  conscience,  aud  of  stating  the  various 
causes  of  it,  so  that  their  real  influence  could  be  understood.  We 
shall  turn  next  to  the  view  of  Mr.  Spencer. 

3.  Spencer's  Theoky  of  the  Evolution  of  Conscience. 
— Mr.  Spencer  has  worked  out  his  doctrine  much  more  systemat- 
ically. With  him  conscience  and  moral  consciousness  are  the 
same,  and  sometimes  he  identifies  moral  consciousness  with  the 


328  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

seuse  of  obligation,  though  at  others  he  seems  to  treat  the  latter 
as  only  one  mode  of  the  former.  But  he  starts  with  the  element 
that  distinguishes  moral  consciousness  and  proceeds  to  explain 
its  genesis.  "  The  essential  trait  in  moral  consciousness,"  says  he, 
"  is  the  control  of  certain  feelings  by  certain  other  feeling  or  feel- 
ings." In  the  first  place,  it  is  noticeable  that  this  conception  of 
it  is  wholly  emotional.  But  such  as  it  is,  Mr.  Spencer  pro- 
ceeds to  show  how  this  superior  feeling  obtained  its  power.  This 
he  says  was  due  to  the  influence  of  religious,  political,  and  social 
restraints,  which  effected  a  disposition  to  relinquish  immediate 
good  and  to  seek  the  more  distant  and  general  good.  But  while 
these  restraints  supplant  moral  control,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer, 
he  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  they  do  not  "  constitute  it,  but  are 
only  preparatory  to  it."  What  the  truly  moral  feeling  is,  Mr. 
Spencer  regards  as  different  from  the  mental  state  corresponding 
to  these  three  forms  of  restraint  and  control.  "  The  truly  moral 
deterrent  from  murder,"  he  says,  "  is  not  constituted  by  a  repre- 
sentation of  hanging  as  a  consequence,  or  by  a  representation  of 
tortures  in  hell  as  a  consequence,  or  by  a  representation  of  the 
horror  and  hatred  excited  in  fellow  men  ;  but  by  a  representation 
of  the  necessary  natural  results — the  infliction  of  death  agony  on 
the  victim,  the  destruction  of  all  his  possibilities  of  happiness," 
which,  Mr.  Spencer  might  add,  the  man  inherently  feels  is  wrong. 
"  One  who  is  morally  prompted  to  fight  against  a  social  evil,"  he 
continues,  "  has  neither  material  benefit  nor  popular  apjDlause 
before  his  mind  ;  but  only  tlic  mischiefs  he  seeks  to  remove  and 
the  increased  well-being  which  will  follow  their  removal." 
Moral  feeling  is  thus  an  estimate  of  the  intrinsic  worth  or  evil  of 
certain  things,  and  not  mere  constraint  or  coercion.  This  is  un- 
questionably a  correct  analysis  of  the  case,  except  that  the  intel- 
lectual ehtment  is  here  surreptitiously  introduced  into  moral  con- 
sciousnes.s,  but  was  excluded  from  it  in  tlic  definition.  But  he 
is  riglit  ill  making  moral  feeling  essentially  diflei'cnt  from  that 
j)roduced  by  the  three  forms  of  restraint,  and  yet  after  this  ad- 
mission one  wonders  how  he  expects  to  account  for  its  genesis  by 
reference  to  these  restraints.     Jn  fact,  as  already  observed,  they 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  329 

can  produce  nothing  but  objective  morality,  while  leaving  subjec- 
tive morality  wholly  unexplained.  When  he  comes  to  stating 
the  genesis  of  the  latter,  it  is  apparent  from  his  whole  argument 
that  he  establishes  nothing  but  its  efficiency,  not  its  origin.  He 
assumes  the  capacity  for  estimating  right  and  wrong,  and  possibly 
the  actual  consciousness  of  what  right  and  wrong  are,  which  is 
the  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for,  while  the  argument  only 
goes  to  show  how  the  feeling  of  right  and  wrong  conquers  that 
which  tempts  the  individual  to  disregard  it.  But  conceding  that 
this  criticism  is  not  accurate,  which  we  have  no  space  to  examine 
in  detail,  the  fatal  incident  in  his  theory  is  the  flat  statement 
that  "  the  restraints  properly  distinguished  as  moral  are  unlike 
the  restraints  out  of  which  they  evolve."  This  is  a  very  strange 
assertion  after  admitting  that  political,  social,  and  religious  re- 
sti'aints  do  not  constitute  moral  feeling,  because  it  implies  that 
something  can  be  evolved  out  of  that  which  contains  none  of  it.  We 
have  already  indicated  how  necessary  it  is  to  the  case  of  empiri- 
cism that  this  principle  be  assumed,  and  also  how  fatal  it  was  to 
assume  it.  Mr.  Spencer  here  states  it  in  a  very  bold  and  offen- 
sive form,  a  form  which  practically  admits  the  creation  of  new 
elements.  After  what  has  been  said  about  the  impossibility  of 
deriving  anything  from  that  which  contains  none  of  it,  without 
admitting  the  theory  of  special  creation,  which  Mr.  Spencer  is 
opposing,  it  is  not  necessary  to  examine  this  statement  more 
fully.  It  suffices  to  show  the  contradiction  between  the  state- 
ment that  political,  social,  and  religious  restraints  do  not  originate 
restraints  that  are  properly  moral,  but  are  only  parallel  and  co- 
incident with  them,  and  the  statement  that  moral  restraints  are 
unlike  those  from  which  they  are  evolved.  This  view  reflects 
the  same  fatal  conception  of  the  problem  that  we  found  in  Dar- 
win's theory  and  in  empiricism  generally,  due,  of  course,  to  the 
feeling  that  we  must  select  a  set  of  phenomena  not  containing 
conscience,  in  order  to  prove  its  comparatively  later  origin,  and 
then  assuming  that  it  is  derived  from  them.  No  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution can  be  sustained  on  such  a  postulate,  except  such  as  repre- 
sents no  opposition  to  the  theory  of  special  creation.     This  is 


330  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

made  suflSciently  clear  by  the  criticism  of  the  same  postulate  in 
experieutialism. 

One  interesting  proof  of  the  defect  in  ]Mr.  Spencer's  theory  is 
a  fact  which  represents  considerable  merit  in  it  at  the  same 
time,  but  reflects  the  uselessness  of  supposing  any  material  in- 
fluence from  the  various  restraints  in  the  development  of  moral 
consciousness.  This  is  his  doctrine  of  the  sense  of  obligation. 
Mr.  Spencer  considers  this  phenomenon  as  equivalent  to  moral 
consciousness  or  conscience,  though  he  seems  to  intend  that  it 
shall  be  narrower  and  less  complex.  But  he  ascribes  to  it  all 
the  qualities  that  are  in  fact  attributed  to  moral  consciousness  in 
general,  namely,  authority  and  coereiveness.  He  intends  the  latter 
attribute  to  be  added  to  conscience  as  an  accident  of  its  nature. 
The  sense  of  obligation,  he  claims,  is  developed  from  two  influ- 
ences. The  first  is  the  accumulated  experiences  which  produce  "the 
consciousness  that  guidance  by  feelings,  which  refer  to  remote 
and  general  results,  is  usually  more  conducive  to  welfare  than 
guidance  by  feelings  to  be  immediately  gratified."  These  higher 
feelings  have  the  characteristic  of  "  authority,"  which  with  Mr. 
Spencer  can  mean  nothing  else  than  legitimacy,  because  the 
notion  of  power  is  introduced  to  describe  the  second  element  of 
obligation.  "  Authority,"  as  legitimacy,  can  only  mean  respect 
for  some  end  felt  as  a  moral  good,  which  we  shall  here  call  rev- 
erence to  distinguish  it  from  the  associated  notion  of  mere 
power  which  the  term  "  authority  "  always  suggests,  and  which 
the  context  of  Mr.  Spencer  shows  he  does  not  mean.  This  is 
the  element  which  he  regards  as  the  truly  moral  feeling,  and 
which  is  not  constituted  by  the  three  forms  of  external  con- 
trol. The  second  characteristic  of  obligation  as  defined  by  Mr. 
Spencer  is  coerclvenes><,  or  the  feeling"  of  constraint,  the  necessity 
of  pursuing  a  course  against  one's  natural  inclinations.  This,  he 
maintains,  is  produced  by  the  political,  social,  and  religious  re- 
straints tliat  bring  the  individual  will  under  subjection.  Now, 
as  this  fooling  is  not  the  true  deterrent  of  wrong  and  prompter 
of  the  right,  ^Ir.  Spencer  holds  that  it  is  the  sign  of  a  defective 
mitral  consciousness,  and  that  it  must  "  diminish  as  fast  as  morali- 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  331 

Zation  increases."  The  sense  of  obligation,  therefore,  he  holds  is 
transitory,  assuming  that  an  ideal  condition  is  possible  or  prob- 
able where  coerciveness  or  the  fear  of  "  authority  "  (as  power) 
is  no  longer  needed.  "We  shall  not  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  his 
conclusion  proves  too  much  considered  from  the  point  of  view  of 
his  ovra  definition.  If  he  had  said  that  the  feeling  of  coercive- 
ness is  transitory  he  would  be  both  consistent  and  correct.  But 
this  is  not  the  only  element  of  obligation  according  to  his  own 
definition,  which  includes  "  authority,"  or  reverence,  as  an 
essential  characteristic.  To  make  this  transitory  is  to  make 
moral  consciousness  transitory,  and  he  does  this  by  speaking  of 
obligation  rather  than  the  feeling  of  coerciveness.  He  is  per- 
haps true  in  this  slip  of  the  tongue  to  the  common  conception  of 
it,  but  in  that  case  he  should  have  omitted  the  element  of 
"  authority  "  from  it.  But  not  to  dwell  upon  this  incident,  the 
important  fact  to  be  noted  is,  that  the  elimination  of  coercive- 
ness as  a  transitory  element  of  moral  consciousness  goes  to  show 
that  the  several  forms  of  restraint  can  be  no  factor  in  the  pro- 
duction of  moral  consciousness,  but  only  of  a  phenomenon  which 
is  not  moral  at  all.  Common  sense  even  asserts  that  the  fear 
of  "authority"  (as  power,  and  in  any  other  sense  the  "fear" 
can  only  be  reverence)  is  not  a  moral  incentive  to  action,  and 
]Mr.  Spencer's  elimination  of  it  only  coincides  with  that  convic- 
tion. But  it  shows,  first,  that  he  had  not  realized  that  the  only 
thing  effected  by  these  restraints  was  objective  morality,  and  not 
moral  consciousness  properly  defined,  and  second,  that  if  the 
element  of  "  authority  "  or  reverence  could  exist  independently 
of  these  restraints,  they  could  not  be  the  conditions  of  it  in.  any 
sense  that  they  were  necessary  to  its  character.  That  is  to  say, 
political,  social,  and  religious  restraints  are  designed  onl}'  to  pro- 
duce coerciveness  and  are  of  no  use  wlieu  reverence  or  respect  for 
the  right  exists  independently  of  them,  and  as  moral  restraints 
cannot  be  evolved  from  the  fear  of  power  without  disappearing 
with  it,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  restraint  exer- 
cised by  power  ever  had  anything  to  do  with  the  creation  of 
this  respect. 


832  ELE2IEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

The  criticism  of  INIr.  Spencer  sums  itself  up  in  the  weakness 
of  the  position  that  morality  can  be  evolved  out  of  that  which 
contains  none  of  it.  If  he  had  maintained  that  tlie  causes  which 
invoke  it  or  which  act  as  efficient  causes  to  produce  its  manifes- 
tation contain  none  of  it,  there  would  be  less  to  say  in  the  way 
of  objection.  But  this  would  not  be  opposed  to  nativism,  Avhile 
the  bald  creaiio  ex  nihilo  doctrine  involved  in  the  evolution  of  a 
thing  not  containing  it,  though  it  favors  empiricism,  does  so  at 
the  expense  of  the  very  principle  for  which  evolution  is  supposed 
to  stand.  The  question,  then,  remains  whether  we  can  sustain  a 
doctrine  of  evolution  at  all,  if  the  systems  we  have  noticed  are  so 
vulnerable  and  defective. 

V.  CONCLUSIONS  IN  BEGAED  TO  EVOLUTION.— Previous 
criticism  would  seem  to  imply  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
would  have  to  be  rejected.  But  this  conclusion  would  be  a  hasty 
one  and  must  depend  wholly  upon  the  conception  we  take  of  the 
process.  In  fact,  our  entire  criticism  has  been  intended  to  bring 
out  the  need  of  more  careful  definition  of  the  problem  before  tak- 
ing one  side  or  the  other.  The  one  great  difficulty  is  that  both 
opponents  and  advocates  of  the  doctrine  have  not  distinguished 
adccpiatcly  between  creation  and  evolution.  Both  haye  assumed 
that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  a  theory  of  creation,  a  theory  to 
account  for  the  introduction  of  absolutely  new  qualities  and 
functions  without  any  appeal  to  extra-natural  causes.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  advocate  of  special  creation  had  two  facts  to  start 
from  upon  which  he  based  the  presumably  impossible  task  of  ac- 
counting for  progress  and  different  effects  witliout  the  existence 
of  supernatural  causes.  They  are  (a)  the  apparent  fixity  of 
species,  and  (Ji)  the  enormous  chasm  between  different  species 
which  cannot  l)e  bridged  by  what  we  know  of  ordinary  hered- 
ity. Inasmuch  as  it  was  admitted  that  all  species  had  an 
origin,  it  was  urged  that  the  type  was  created  supernaturally  at 
the  outset  and  left  to  continue  its  existence  without  any  essential 
variation,  wliilc  tlic  diHercnces  between  the  various  species  were 
supposed  to  be,  so  marked  that  the  higher  could  not  be  evolved 
out  of  the  lower,  the  differential  characteristic  or  characteristics 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  ^33 

being  wli.illy  new  data,  Avhose  explanation  was  not  referable  to 
those  of  lower  orders.  The  creationist's  position,  then,  was,  there- 
fore, identified  with  the  notion  of  miraculons,  occasional,  and 
supernatural  interference  with  an  order  which  could  only  explain 
invariability,  inertia,  or  the  absence  of  change.  It  accounted  for 
the  origin  of  life  and  for  its  modification  in  the  same  way,  and 
even  the  origin  of  matter.  But  it  has  usually  discussed  the  ques- 
tion as  if  it  were  only  the  origin  of  life  and  its  modification  that 
were  concerned,  and  took  the  ground  that  the  various  increments 
and  differences  which  we  observe  between  the  lower  and  higher 
orders  of  existence  could  not  be  explained  by  the  supposition  that 
the  latter  were  evolved  out  of  the  former.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  evolutionist  denies  the  supernatural,  denies  the  fixity  of  species, 
minimizes  the  differences  between  species,  and  attempts  to  account 
for  the  origin  of  everything  by  the  sufficiency  of  natural  causes- 
But  his  misfortune  has  been  tltat  he  has  supported  evolution  upon 
creationist  postulates.  First,  he  has  admitted  that  there  are  new 
elements  to  be  accounted  for  in  the  scale  of  existence  which  con- 
sistency required  him  to  deny,  and  which  the  facts  used  in  the 
argument  required  him  to  deny.  Second,  he  assumed  that  nat- 
ural causes  could  do  what  his  own  definition  of  them  maintains 
that  they  cannot  do,  namely,  the  work  of  the  supernatural.  He 
assumed  that  something  could  be  developed  from  that  which  con- 
tained none  of  it,  while  "  natural  "  causes  were  supposed  incapa- 
ble of  any  such  effect.  If  they  were  capable  of  producing  this 
effect  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  look  for  any  law  in  the  world 
at  all,  or  for  the  limitation  of  any  species  to  a  like  ancestry. 
Such  a  thing  as  sterility  ought  not  to  exist  under  any  conception 
of  the  world  which  identifies  evolution  with  the  origin  of  things 
from  that  which  contains  none  of  them.  It  could  only  be  an 
order  in  which  things  originated  either  spontaneously,  that  is, 
without  a  cause,  or  by  supernatural  agency.  Hence  the  only  re- 
source for  consistent  evolution  is  to  abandon  the  concession 
made  to  creationism  and  to  analyze  more  carefully  the  phenom- 
ena which  it  tries  to  explain. 

With  this  statement  of  the  misunderstanding  between  the  two 


334  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

positions  and  of  the  weaknesses  wbicli  have  attended  the  usual 
defence  of  evolution  we  may  proceed  to  show  how  the  true  con- 
ception of  it  applies  to  the  problem  of  conscience.  "We  have, 
then,  first  to  consider  the  nature  of  the  jirocess. 

1st,  The  Nature  of  Evolution — The  proper  conception  of 
evolution  is  that  of  the  expansion  of  capacities  or  the  elicitation 
of  latent  poivers  into  exercise  and  predominance  over  others.  In 
other  words,  it  is  development,  not  creation.  Any  other  concep- 
tion of  it  is  sure  to  give  trouble.  Nor  is  it  at  all  necessary  to 
conceive  it  as  oj^posed  to  creationist  theories.  It  will  confine 
itself  to  the  task  of  showing  how  complex  phenomena  originate 
from  the  combination  of  elements  Avhose  "  origin  "  does  not  con- 
cern it,  and  liow  certain  phenomena  become  able  to  supplant  the 
influence  of  others,  but  not  how  they  originate  from  those  con- 
taining none  of  them.  It  can  leave  the  "  origin  "  of  elements 
and  latent  capacities  to  creationist  doctrines.  If  there  are  any 
new  elements  introduced  into  the  world  order  from  time  to  time 
it  can  concede  a  place  to  creation ;  if  not,  it  may  go  about  the 
work  of  showing  how  the  complex  and  progressive  order  of  the 
world  represents  a  modification  of  relations  and  combination 
among  these  elements ;  that  is,  showing  the  derivation  of  complex 
phenomena  without  discussing  the  origin  either  of  the  elements  or 
of  the  process.  The  vulnerability  of  creationist  theories  lies  in 
the  facts  that  they  have  generally  distinguished  wrongly  be- 
twe(!n  natural  and  supernatural  causes,  ignored  or  denied  the 
law  of  continuity,  and  assumed  the  simplicity  and  underivabil- 
ity  of  phenomena  that  were  or  are  complex  and  derived  from 
the  union  of  simpler  elements.  Their  strength  lies  in  their 
ability  to  account  for  factors  wliich  the  evolutionist  conceded 
were  not  found  in  tlie  antecedents  of  the  phenomena  to  be  ex- 
plained, and  liad  they,  on  the  one  hand,  been  more  adept  in 
proving  the  simplicity  of  the  new  factors  under  dispute  they 
might  have  won  their  case,  and  had  they,  on  the  other,  confined 
their  argument  to  the  fact  that  all  i)hcnomeii:i  must  have  some 
other  causes  than  phenomena  alone  tliey  would  not  have  come 
into   conflict    with   evolution.     Had    the   evolutionists,   on    the 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIEyCE  335 

other  hand,  observed  that  they  had  endowed  natural  causes  with 
creative  powers,  limited  by  the  creationist  to  supernatural 
causes,  as  is  indicated  by  their  concession  that  natural  causes 
could  produce  what  was  new  and  not  contained  in  them- 
selves, they  would  have  abandoned  an  antagonism  to  theories 
which  was  based  upon  a  false  antithesis  between  natural  and 
supernatural  causes,  and  confined  their  task  to  showing  how  ex- 
ternal influences  elicit  the  exercise  and  development  of  latent 
capacities  and  functions,  whether  native  or  acquired.  This 
would  have  left  them  free  to  discuss  evolution  without  condition- 
ing it  upon  the  truth  of  metaphysical  empiricism.  It  would  have 
made  the  doctrine  the  complement  of  general  nativism  and  the 
mere  expression  of  orderly  progress,  which  is  more  the  result  of 
combining  existing  forces  and  functions  than  it  is  the  addition  of 
new  data  to  lower  orders  of  nature.  The  total  result  may 
appear  new,  but  its  elements  may  not  be  new.  This  is  only  to 
say  that  evolution  may  give  new  form  to  its  products,  but  not 
new  matter.  The  importance  of  this  conception  w'ill  appear  in 
the  sequel. 

Now,  the  comprehensive  definition  of  conscience  which  we  have 
adopted  conduces  to  this  view  of  the  problem,  because,  instead  of 
limiting  it  to  a  simple  phenomenon  like  constraint  or  reverence, 
we  make  it  the  whole  mind  in  relation  to  moral  objects,  compris- 
ing intellectual,  emotional,  and  desiderative  elements  in  a  certain 
combination  and  application.  INIr.  Spencer  has  a  clear  conception 
of  this  in  his  general  doctrine  of  evolution,  and  at  the  outset  of 
his  genesis  of  moral  consciousness,  but  he  spoils  the  whole  effect  of 
this  by  virtually  conceding  the  unique  and  simple  nature  of  the 
phenomenon,  and  by  admitting  the  creationist  postulate.  But  if 
we  adhere  closely  to  the  true  conception  of  evolutions  that  it  is 
merely  the  expansion  of  latent  capacities,  or  the  combination  of 
them  to  produce  an  apparently  new  datum,  we  shall  understand 
how  conscience  may,  on  the  one  hand,  gain  an  efficiency  which 
gives  it  supremacy  among  the  impulses  to  action,  and  on  the 
other,  be  on  the  whole  a  new  capacity  compared  with  lower  or- 
ders where  the  combination  of  its  elements  does  not  exist.  Keep- 


380  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

ing  this  limitation  of  the  problem  in  view,  we  may  restate  the 
process  of  evolution  and  show  just  what  influence  is  exercised  by 
the  agencies  invoked  l\v  the  empiricists  in  general. 

In  the  first  place,  association  of  pleasures  and  pains,  and  the 
imposition  of  various  restraints  on  the  individual,  do  tend  to 
develop,  but  not  to  create,  conscience,  leaving  for  the  present  the 
question  how  the  individual  came  to  have  it.  But  taking  the 
individual  early  in  his  life,  or  early  in  the  stage  of  civilization 
when  there  seems  to  be  no  conscience  present,  and  certainly  none 
that  prevails  in  directing  the  will,  these  influences  elicit  mental 
states ;  they  do  not  create  them,  but  elicit  them,  as  the  expression 
of  existing  capacities,  which  states  exercise  an  influence  among 
the  others.  The  memory  of  a  past  pain  with  a  particular  act  avails 
to  inhibit  the  repetition  of  the  act,  of  a  pleasure,  to  initiate  its 
reoccurrence.  Elementary  restraint  is  involved  in  this,  even  when 
no  arbitrary  restrictions  from  other  wills  are  supposed.  It  is  the 
restraint  or  constraint  of  more  long-sighted  adjustment.  This 
feeling  would  not  occur  but  for  the  consciousness  of  two  alterna- 
tives between  which  the  choice  must  be  made.  The  prevalence 
of  the  alternative  involving  the  remoter  good  is  so  much  in  favor 
of  its  future  prevalence  until  habit  may  overcome  the  feeling  of 
constraint  by  removing  the  competition  of  the  more  proximate 
good.  This  constraint  is  more  evident  when  political,  social,  and 
religious  authority  is  used  to  limit  liberty  and  restrain  desire. 
They  produce  a  conflict  between  alternatives  that  nature  might 
not  effect.  It  is  quite  as  natural  a  phenomenon  as  any  that 
may  have  been  prior  to  it,  but  as  long  as  no  dangerous  conse- 
quences, near  or  remote,  are  involved  in  the  course  of  action  first 
suggested,  there  is  no  need  for  the  existence  and  influence  of  re- 
straint, and  it  can  be  elicited  only  by  the  consciousness  of  con- 
flict between  two  alternatives  with  the  necessity  of  choosing  for 
protection,  or  for  realizing  an  ideal,  that  one  which  involves  the 
lea.st  sacrifice.  This  constraint,  which  takes  the  name  of  obliga- 
tion when  there  is  any  ajjprcciation  of  the  value  and  importance 
of  its  ol)ject,  is  fpiite  its  natural  as  any  desire  opposed  to  it.  It  is 
that  function  of  consciousness  which  expresses  the  necessity  of  ad- 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  337 

justmeut  as  against  a  free  desire,  and  external  influence  only  in- 
cites it  to  act ;  it  does  not  create  it,  but  only  otters  it  an  opportunity 
to  become  efficient.  Habit,  again,  irj  adjustment  to  the  altered 
environment  sustains  this  efficiency  until  its  momentum  wholly 
suppresses  the  temptations  of  immediate  good,  and  conscience 
thus  becomes  the  expression  of  reason,  tlie  voluntary  and  willing 
service  of  duty. 

This  description  of  the  growth  of  conscience  seems  only  to  be 
a  repetition  of  the  argument  for  experientialism,  and  so  would 
seem  merely  to  reinstate  the  very  position  we  criticised.  But  in 
reply  to  this  intended  objection  it  is  most  important  to  remember 
that  the  difference  between  the  two  doctrines  is  very  great.  Ex- 
perientialism is  a  theory  of  the  "  origin,"  genesis,  the  creation 
of  conscience,  as  a  new  function  of  human  consciousness,  but 
what  we  are  here  defending  ig  not  its  "  origin,"  but  the  occasion  of 
its  acquiring  efficiency,  which  is  voluntary  though  the  alternatives 
oflTering  the  occasion  are  externally  produced.  There  is  a  vast 
difference  between  the  "  origin  "  or  genesis  of  conscience,  espe- 
cially when  that  phrase  will  be  taken  to  imply  the  "  origin "  of 
the  faculty  (transcendentally)  rather  than  the  "  origin  "  of  the 
specific  consciousness  of  right  and  wrong  (phenomenally),  and  the 
creation  of  an  emergency  where  the  efficiency  of  conscience  is 
necessary  for  protection  or  self-realization.  The  latter  position 
evades  all  the  confusion,  entanglements,  and  controversies  of  cre- 
ationist metaphysics,  while  neither  denying  nor  affirming  its  doc- 
trine, and  leaves  external  influences  to  the  limited  function  of 
creating  conditions  for  the  manifestation  and  increased  efficiency  of 
conscience,  and  not  for  producing  either  its  capacity  or  its  phenom- 
ena. For  where  the  capacity  does  not  exist  external  restraints 
will  act  in  vain,  so  far  as  the  elicitation  of  conscience  is  con- 
cerned, and  if  this  exists  its  phenomena  are  its  own  production 
though  the  occasion  for  them  is  or  may  be  of  foreign  origin.  They 
become  more  or  less  permanent  through  exercise,  as  habit  estab- 
lishes the  line  of  least  resistance  until  less  moral  impulses  are 
atrophied  and  suppressed.  The  tendency  thus  becomes  moral 
with  its  reflected  elements  of  moral  consciousness,  though  it  is 


333  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

only  their  efficiency  and  not  their  functional  character  which  ex- 
ternal agencies  condition. 

Now,  the  process  of  evolution,  as  ajiplied  to  the  race,  simply 
takes  whatever  efficiency  a  function  may  have  acquired  through 
experience,  and  transmits  it  as  a  native  propensity  to  the  next 
generation,  where  it  will  require  less  influence  from  the  outside 
to  incite  it  to  action.  The  process  of  strengthening  it  may  thus  be 
continued  instead  of  beginning  the  work,  as  in  the  prior  gener- 
ation. The  advantage  from  the  process  is  that  the  whole  of  the 
work  does  not  have  to  be  done  over  again,  and  each  successive 
generation  begins  where  the  last  left  off,  until  finally  the  order  of 
supremacy  among  the  impulses  is  reversed  from  the  non-moral 
to  the  moral,  the  former  being  as  inefficient  as  the  latter  were 
in  the  beginning.  This  is  wdiat  is  meant  by  the  "  origin  "  of  con- 
science, the  development  of  efficiency  in  mental  states  little  dis- 
posed or  qualified  at  the  outset  to  compete  vigorously  with  egois- 
tic and  non-moral  feelings.  It  is  the  creation  of  a  condition  or 
emergency  where  the  better  functions  of  consciousness  must  ex- 
ert themselves  in  behalf  of  the  individual's  protection  and  welfare, 
then  the  formation  by  ha])it  of  a  permanent  and  fixed  tendency, 
its  transmission  by  heredity  to  the  next  generation,  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  its  universality  by  natural  selection  and  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  This  assumes,  however,  that  all  the  elements  are 
given,  and*  that  evolution  has  only  to  give  them  efficiency  and 
permanency. 

We  have  distinguished  between  cxperientialism  and  evolu- 
tionism by  saying  that  the  former  pretends  only  to  explain  the 
origin  of  the  phenomena,  the  latter  the  faculty  of  conscience. 
This  implies  that  the  faculty  is  given  in  the  individual,  at  least 
as  he  is  known  to-day.  But  evolution  intends  to  account  for 
what  we  now  liiid  in  the  individuals  of  the  race,  and  the  ques- 
tion is  now  raised  wliethcr  new  faculties  can  be  originated  by 
the  influences  mentioned  any  more  than  states  of  consciousness. 
The  answer  to  this  will  dcpond  upon  the  conception  wc  take  of 
conscience  as  a  faculty.  Jf  it  be  a  simple  faculty  limited,  say, 
to  the  sense  of  duty,  regret  fi^r  error,  or  reverence  for  law,  and 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  COXSCIEXCE  339 

the  capacity  for  feeling  wliat  either  of  these  express,  then  we 
affirm  that  even  evolution  could  not  originate  it,  assuming  that 
it  was  not  given  primordially,  as  a  germ  at  least,  in  the  funda- 
mental data  of  consciousness.  But  if  we  conceive  it  as  a  complex 
faculty  or  set  of  co-operating  functions  its  case  may  be  very  dif- 
ferent. Take  it  as  defined,  namely,  as  the  mind  in  its  relation 
to  moral  phenomena,  the  mind  conscious  of  and  moved  by  moral 
objects,  as  intellect  is  a  name  for  mind  as  conscious  of  phenom- 
enal events,  and  we  may  well  admit  the  possibility  that  there 
could  be  latent  in  this  general  consciousness  a  number  of  capac- 
ities which  experience  and  heredity  might,  if  given  time,  unite 
in  efficiency  and  value  so  as  to  give  an  apparently  new  j^ower. 
Suppose  the  cognitive,  emotional,  and  desiderative  elements  to 
exist  among  lower  orders  of  creation,  but  only  in  an  isolated 
condition,  each  directed  to  an  object  of  its  own,  and  never  com- 
bined upon  an  object  known  as  moral,  then  conscience  can  be 
said  not  to  exist  though  its  components  exist  in  solution.  Thus, 
a  being  might  cognize  a  series  of  acts  which  were  cruel  and  yet 
not  have  those  feelings  which  accompany  or  constitute  a  sense  of 
cruelty ;  or  a  being  might  have  a  sense  of  cruelty  from  acts 
injurious  to  self  and  yet  not  realize  associated  feeling  or  connec- 
tion with  the  same  act  upon  others,  or  even  cognize  its  similarity. 
Its  sympathies  or  social  instincts  may  not  be  called  into  co-opera- 
tive action,  and  hence  the  complex  idea  of  right  and  wrong,  in- 
volving intellectual,  emotional,  and  social  elements  of  a  high  order, 
combined  to  produce  a  certain  direction  to  consciousness,  would 
not  exist.  If  external  influences  ever  produced  a  condition  in 
which  these  prd^er  elements  entered  into  conjoint  action  and  con- 
tinued so,  and  reflection  with  association  occupied  itself  with  this 
condition,  a  nascent  habit  of  action  diverted  in  the  direction  of 
morality  might  very  well  originate,  and  once  initiated  the  various 
interests,  subjective  and  objective,  might  increase  its  momentum 
and  efficiency  until  the  cohesion  of  the  several  elements  received 
that  consistency  which  looks  like  a  sim^^le  faculty,  and  which, 
from  the  prominence  and  value  of  one  of  its  functions,  like  duty, 
might  be  confused  with  it.     If  we  assume,  therefore,  that  in  man 


340  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

this  cohesiou  lias  reached  the  required  fixity,  as  well  as  complex- 
ity, and  that  it  is  absent  in  the  animals,  we  can  well  say  that 
there  is  a  difference  in  kind  between  them  ;  that  man  has  a  con- 
science and  the  animals  have  not.  The  difference,  however,  is  not 
in  the  elements,  but  in  their  mode  of  action.  In  man  they  are 
conjoined  for  a  common  object  and  are  conscious  of  themselves.  In 
animals  they  are  either  not  co-operative  at  all,  or  if  co-operative 
as  iustincts,  they  are  not  conscious  or  reflective.  Hence  con- 
science becomes  a  name  for  a  group  of  co-operative  functions 
which,  so  far  from  being  evolved  from  that  which  contains  none 
of  it,  is  evolved  from  elements,  each  of  which  docs  not  contain  it 
as  a  whole,  but  which  compose  it.  Evolution  thus  does  not  pro- 
duce these  elements,  but  it  produces  their  complex  and  harmoni- 
ous action.  It  produces  the  faculty  as  a  complex  whole  as  well 
as  its  efficiency,  but  without  adding  any  new  function  to  exist- 
ence. Its  influence  is  to  consolidate  existing  functions,  not  to 
create  them.  But  in  consolidating  them  it  produces  a  whole 
which  is  not  found  in  lower  orders,  though  we  may  find  various 
imitations  in  the  partial  organization  of  it  casually  and  perhaps 
temporarily.  It  is  only  in  the  consolidation  of  existing  elements, 
however,  that  we  can,  on  the  one  hand,  maintain  a  true  concep- 
tion of  evolution  and,  on  the  other,  suj^pose  that  the  resultant  is 
in  any  way  like  a  new  quality.  We  may  thus  draw  a  qualita- 
tive distinction  between  different  orders  of  existence  which 
ena1)les  us  to  satisfy  our  feelings  about  the  vast  difference  which 
morality  establishes  between  man  and  animals ;  but  as  already 
remarked,  it  is  a  qualitative  difference  in  the  total,  and  not  in 
the  elements,  and  this  is  the  only  sense  in  which  evolution  can  be 
said  to  originate  conscience  as  a  faculty. 

2d.  The  Importance  of  the  Theory  of  Evolution. — To  many 
minds  the  doctrine  of  evolution  lias  seemed  to  he  destructive  of 
ethics.  This  was  no  doulit  due  i)ai-tly  to  the  reaction  against 
creationist  tlieories  with  their  tiieological  associations,  and  partly 
to  its  afliliations  with  purely  empirical  principles  and  their  latent 
niillilication  of  responsiliility.  I>ut  this  feeling  aftei-  all  has  been 
a    ])r(jii(|ice,  which  could  not  justify  itself  except  by  rejecting 


THE  OEIGIX  OF  CONSCIENCE  341 

the  whole  significance  and  value  of  education,  which  is  a  develop- 
ing process  upon  the  same  scale  as  that  we  have  described,  and  is 
everywhere  lauded  for  that  very  consequence.  Evolution  is 
nothing  but  education,  and  education  is  nothing  but  evolution, 
while  nativism  is  not  opposed  to  either  of  them.  All  parties  have 
appreciated  the  value  of  education  and  the  theory  of  it,  and 
should  not  take  umbrage  at  evolution  which  only  explains  for 
the  race  what  education  does  for  the  individual.  But  the  propo- 
sition of  it  came  when  it  gave  a  rude  shock  to  certain  preju- 
dices and  seemed  to  threaten  the  very  foundations  of  morality. 
It  is  true  that  it  does  modify  the  theory  of  responsibility,  as 
defended  in  the  age  of  scholasticism.  But  this  is  precisely  its 
merit.  It  does  not  wholly  eliminate  responsibility ;  it  merely 
modifies  the  strictness  and  severity  of  its  application  to  practical 
life,  and  this  is  a  most  important  function  in  the  development  of 
human  conduct.     Let  us  examine  how  it  does  this. 

AYe  have  seen  two  facts  in  regard  to  responsibility.  First,  the 
existence  of  it  in  any  form  whatever  is  conditioned  upon  the 
presence  of  the  faculty  of  conscience  at  least,  and  the  degree  of  it 
upon  the  extent  of  moral  knowledge  and  feeling.  Second,  re- 
sponsibility exists  in  different  degrees  with  different  men,  accord- 
ing to  the  fact  just  mentioned.  Now,  in  order  to  treat  man  as  in 
any  way  morally  responsible  (not  causally  "  responsible ")  we 
must  assume  that  all  individuals  of  the  class  have  a  capacity  for 
moral  distinctions  and  moral  feelings.  Moreover,  we  treat  him 
as  he  is,  not  as  he  was  in  the  earliest  period  when  conscience 
did  not  exist  as  Ave  know  it.  AYe  may  take  him  as  evolutionists 
concede  he  is,  whatever  his  origin  or  the  orgin  of  his  conscience. 
This  assumes  that  he  now  has  moral  faculty.  Hence  to  that  ex- 
tent we  consider  all  men  responsible,  limiting  the  quality,  how- 
ever, to  the  rational  stage  of  his  development.  But  we  have 
already  admitted  that  all  men  are  not  equally  responsible.  On 
this  matter  scholasticism  was  too  severe  and  rigid.  The  doctrine 
of  salvation  and  of  eternal  punishment  were  in  its  favor,  and  these 
influences  were  reinforced  by  the  democratic  spirit  of  Christianity, 
which  made  all  men  equal.    It  did  not  see  that  the  only  equality 


342  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

that  was  defensible  was  the  equality  of  his  relation  to  objedue 
morality,  and  not  his  equality  in  subjective  capacities  and  merits. 
Hence,  not  distinguishing  between  these  the  doctrine  of  equal  re- 
sponsibility was  everywhere  the  only  view  taken  of  man,  with  the 
excejDtion  of  imbeciles  and  the  insane.  All  men  of  any  aver- 
age sanity  and  rationality  were  adjudged  as  equally  responsible, 
and  it  was  supposed  that  any  weakening  of  the  doctrine  meant 
the  overthrow  of  all  responsibility.  But  we  have  already  shown 
that  there  are  two  stages  of  responsibility,  one  based  upon  the 
capacity  for  moral  distinctions,  and  the  other  upon  the  degree  of 
knowledge  and  moral  sensibility,  the  last  condition  varying  in  all 
degrees.  Now,  evolution  shows  how  these  diflerences  arise,  and 
so  explains  why  we  should  not  treat  all  persons  alike  in  the  appli- 
cation of  praise  and  blame.  It  is,  of  course,  the  fact  of  these 
difierences  rather  than  that  of  evolution  which  affects  the  degree 
of  responsibility,  but  the  theory  of  evolution  shows  how  the  facts 
come  to  be  as  they  are,  rather  than  determines  their  value  and 
implication.  "With  the  vast  differences  of  original  endowment 
which  might  be  expected  in  a  world  like  the  present,  with  the 
differences  of  experience,  differences  of  heredity,  of  natural  selec- 
tion, of  survival,  and  reversion  to  primitive  types,  and  differences 
of  condition  and  environment  added  to  abnormal  development — 
with  all  these  sources  of  variation,  we  could  only  expect  equal 
diHerenccs  of  responsibility,  and  it  is  the  limitations  upon  this 
characteristic  which  evolution  shows  that  give  it  its  sole  value 
to  ethics.  AVherever  it  is  accepted  with  its  implications  there 
must  be  decidedly  more  humanity  in  our  consideration  and  treat- 
ment of  ra^n,  less  adulation  of  them  for  their  merits,  and  less  re- 
proach for  their  delinquencies.  But  it  will  not  alter  the  correc- 
tive method  of  discipline,  except  in  the  matter  of  the  length  of 
time  for  applying  it.  Every  consideration  of  evolution  points  to 
the  importance  of  making  the  period  of  punishment  indefinite 
and  tiie  time  of  conferring  liberty  upon  the  subject  of  it  depend- 
ent upon  his  moral  dcvcloi)ment  under  discipline.  But  it  will 
neither  tolerate  the  retributive  methods  of  the  past  nor  encourage 
the  substitution  of  purely  preventive  measures,  except  in  the  worst 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  COXSCIEXCE  343 

forms  of  criminal  offence.  In  all  cases,  however,  its  voice  is  in 
favor  of  humanity,  provided,  of  course,  that  Ave  retain  morality 
at  all,  and  as  the  nature  and  validity  of  morality  does  not  in  the 
least  depend  upon  the  fact  or  truth  of  evolution,  we  may  well 
suppose  that  the  limitations  of  responsibility  which  it  shows  are 
its  title  to  respect  in  our  judgment  of  men,  and  this  effect  is  its 
only  value.  It  is  a  matter  of  considerable  wonder  that  its  advo- 
cates have  not  seen  this  feature  of  it,  but  have  wholly  passed  it 
by  and  concentrated  interest  upon  the  doctrine,  as  if  the  validity 
of  moral  principles  depended  upon  its  issue.  But  the  only  perti- 
nence which  it  possesses  relates  to  responsibility,  and  even  this  is 
only-  indirect. 

3d.  Relation  of  Evolutionism  to  Ethics. — There  is  a  wide- 
spread feeling  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution  is  one  of  great  im- 
portance to  Ethics  and  that  there  is  even  an  evolutionistic 
Ethics,  or  that  the  whole  problem  of  morality  is  and  must  be 
transformed  by  the  conception  of  development.  This  thesis  we 
shall  absolutely  deny.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  the  discussions  and  speculations  of  evolution  have  as  a 
matter  of  fact  very  greatly  influenced  recent  ethical  controver- 
sies. In  fact,  the  doctrine  created  so  many  apprehensions  when 
it  was  first  proposed  that  one  of  the  first  effects  was  to  begin  a 
thorough  reconstruction  of  Ethics.  The  activity  in  this  field  has 
been  very  remarkable  during  the  last  two  decades.  More,  per- 
haps, has  been  written  upon  the  subject  of  Ethics  than  for  two 
centuries  previous.  But  the  enthusiasm  of  the  evolutionist  and 
the  belief  that  a  new  princi2:)le  of  Ethics  was  discovered  were 
wholly  misdirected.  There  is  not  a  particle  of  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  real  problem  of  Ethics  has  been  in  the  least  altered  by 
evolution  and  evolutionistic  theories.  The  causes  for  the  actual 
influence  exercised  by  it  upon  moral  speculations  were  mainly 
outside  the  real  problem  of  development.  They  were  two :  (a) 
the  immense  extension  of  the  natural,  and  (h)  the  influence  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  struggle  for  existence.  The  first  of  these 
influences  has  always  been  a  matter  of  contention  in  the  problem 
of  Ethics  and  is  not  peculiar  to  the  theory  of  evolution.     The 


344  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

question  regarding  how  much  place  shall  be  given  to  natural 
conditions,  mental  or  extra-mental,  is  merely  the  problem  of  how 
far  we  are  to  act  independently  of  them  and  to  keep  them  under 
due  control,  and  is  not  materially  affected  by  the  discovery  of 
the  fact  and  of  the  mode  of  evolution.  The  theory  of  develop- 
ment has  done  no  more  than  to  emphasize  and  extend  our  con- 
ception of  the  conditions  and  limitations  under  which  obligations 
exist.  But  it  has  added  no  new  conditions  or  limitations  except 
that  of  heredity,  and  this  affects  only  the  problem  of  responsibility 
and  not  the  grounds  of  morality.  The  basis  of  morality  remains 
the  same  whether  evolution  be  true  or  not,  so  that  the  doctrine 
can  only  intensify  the  old  controversy  as  to  man's  responsibility 
by  its  vast  extension  of  the  natural  limitations  under  which  he 
acts.  But  it  is  absolutely  unrelated  to  the  one  fundamental 
question  as  to  what  is  right  and  why  it  is  right.  The  second 
cause  is  more  interesting.  This,  as  Ave  saw,  Avas  the  doctrine  of 
the  struggle  for  existence.  Evolution  referred  the  whole  progress 
of  the  world  to  this  one  law  with  the  survival  of  the  fittest  and 
the  inheritance  of  their  qualities,  while  moralists  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  referring  it  to  groAvth  in  morality.  The  struggle  for 
existence  as  everywhere  exhibited  was  only  a  warfare  between 
contending  parties.  It  represents  the  ghastly  spectacle  of  uni- 
versal destruction,  the  triumph  of  mere  force,  and  the  embodi- 
ment of  everything  which  is  opposed  to  the  ideal.  Under  it  the 
universe  seems  one  vast  system  of  shambles  for  the  destruction 
of  the  weak  and  the  preservation  of  the  strong.  The  only  right 
respected  in  such  a  system  is  might  or  power.  But  it  is  appar- 
ent to  every  one  at  a  glance  that  if  any  morality  is  to  be  main- 
tained at  all,  it  cannot  come  from  an  imitation  or  application  of 
the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  indiscriminate  warfare  which 
it  exhibits.  Morality  consists  rather  in  putting  limits  to  the 
struggle  for  cxidcnoe,  and  hence  cannot  be  derived  from  it.  Mr. 
Huxley  has  finally  admitted  this  in  a  lecture  which  has  created 
a  widespread  interest  for  the  very  reason  that  it  concedes  all  that 
moralists  had  ever  charged  against  the  capacity  of  evolution  to 
furnish  a  foundation  for  Ethics  in  the  only  principle  which  the 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  COXSCIEXCE  345 

doctrine  needed  for  its  special  purpose,  namely,  the  struggle  for 
existence  and  the  survival  of  the  strong.  If  the  idea  represented 
by  this  fact,  as  we  observe  it  in  the  various  orders  of  existence, 
be  the  one  from  which  duty  and  obligation  are  to  be  derived 
we  should  certainly  find  no  reason  for  justice  and  benevolence. 
The  struggle  for  existence  is  worse  than  a  travesty  of  morality. 
It  is  the  very  antithesis  of  it.  If  Ave  should  change  the  concep- 
tion of  this  struggle  so  that  it  did  not  represent  a  savage  conflict 
between  the  weak  and  the  strong,  there  would  be  less  objection 
to  it  as  a  principle.  But  this  would  be  to  admit  more  in  the 
lower  stages  of  development  than  the  doctrine  had  dared  to  sup- 
pose in  its  effort  to  show  the  evolution  of  the  moral  from  the 
non-moral.  It  would  assume  that  the  process  was  more  than  a 
struggle  between  the  strong  and  the  \:eixk  and  thus  undermine 
the  efficiency  of  the  very  principle  upon  which  evolution  was 
founded,  except  that  we  so  changed  the  concejDtion  of  it  as  to 
render  perfectly  absurd  all  the  noise  that  has  been  made  about 
the  necessity  of  re'^onstructing  Ethics.  There  can  certainly  be 
no  objection  to  this  result.  But  it  justifies  the  critic  of  evolution 
and  removes  all  right  to  place  morality  where  it  would  be  subject 
to  the  struggle  for  existence  as  that  has  hitherto  been  conceived 
and  rejiresented.  Hence  the  evolutionist  must  either  change  his 
conception  of  the  process  of  evolution  to  suit  morality  or  he  must 
admit  that  the  notion  of  right  and  wrong  cannot  be  deduced 
from  the  process.  In  either  case  he  cannot  suppose  that  morality 
depends  for  its  basis  ujjon  evolution,  which  in  reality  has  to  do 
only  with  the  causes  of  survival  and  growth,  but  not  with  the 
contents  or  nature  of  that  whose  survival  and  development  it 
explains.  If  he  changes  the  conception  of  the  process  to  suit 
the  nature  of  morality,  he  must  admit  that  the  problem  of  Ethics 
remains  as  it  was  before  evolution  was  proposed.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  struggle  for  existence,  conceived  as  a  conflict 
between  the  weak  and  the  strong,  be  the  highest  principle  of 
evolution,  then  he  must  either  deny  that  morality  is  anything 
more  than  this  or  admit  that  it  has  no  foundation  in  the  prin- 
ciple of  evolution.      The  former  alternative  is  so  evidently  ab- 


346  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

surd  and  contrary  to  fact  that  not  even  the  evolutionist  ven- 
tures to  maintain  it  and  he  is  left  to  choose  either  the  latter  or 
the  position  that  the  struggle  for  existence  contains  more  than 
has  been  represented  of  it.  Either  one  of  these  is  suicidal  to 
the  claim  that  Ethics  is  affected  in  the  least  by  evolution,  except 
in  the  application  of  the  theory  of  responsibility. 

The  primary  and  fundamental  problem  of  Ethics  is  the  nature, 
grounds,  and  validity  of  morality,  not  its  "  origin  "  or  genesis  his- 
torically considered.  The  latter  is  a  help,  but  not  a  condition  of 
its  analysis,  and  aside  from  this  may  be  thrown  aside  in  the  solu- 
tion of  the  one  problem  for  which  the  science  exists.  Ethics 
asks  and  answers  two  questions  :  "  What  is  right  ?  "  and  "  Tiliy 
is  it  right  ?  "  Ultimately  the  answer  to  both  questions  must  be 
the  same,  because  whatever  particular  actions  are  decided  to  be 
right  must  have  their  character  determined  by  the  ground  upon 
which  they  rest,  the  ultimate  end  which  they  serve.  Hence  the 
primary  object  of  scientific  Ethics  is  the  highest  good,  the  ideal 
condition  or  end  which  it  is  a  duty  to  realize.  After  this  it  is  inter- 
ested in  determining  the  particular  course  of  conduct  necessary 
for  obtaining  this  end.  It  is  perfectly  clear  that  evolution  has 
nothing  to  do  with  either  of  these  problems.  H^o  matter  how  I 
may  have  been  evolved,  my  duty  remains  the  same,  my  nature 
being  what  it  is,  and  also  it  remains  what  it  is  whether  I  have 
been  evolved  or  not.  Duties  and  the  ideal  are  independent  of 
that  issue.  It  is  no  use  to  say  that  my  duties  would  have  been 
different  had  the  course  of  evolution  been  different,  for  this 
might  very  well  be  admitted.  But  if  any  duty  xvhatever  remains 
under  any  imaginable  jyrocess  of  evolution,  it  not  only  proves 
that  a  given  course  of  it  has  'not  originated  the  duty,  hid  also 
that  morality  must  be  independent  of  the  j)rocess.  Moreover, 
evolution  cannot  be  conceived  without  reference  to  a  goal  or  end. 
We  cannot  imagine  it  as  creating  the  very  end  toward  wliich  it 
moves.  Moral  c<jnduct  derives  its  character  from  the  end  which 
it  serves  to  attain,  and  this  must  exist  as  an  ul)ject  of  conscious- 
ness before  any  process  of  conscious  action  can  aim  at  it.  Now, 
evolution  must  be  cither  a  conscious  or  an  unconscious  process. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE  347 

If  it  bo  unconscious  it  can  have  no  end  in  view,  l)ut  only  a  con- 
sequence can  occur  as  tlie  sequel  of  it,  and  no  morality  whatever 
is  possible  in  the  case.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  be  conscious  the 
ideal  end  in  view  is  not  a  creation  of  the  process,  and  the  deter- 
mination of  it  must  be  independent  of  evolutionistic  methods, 
except  that  we  take  evolution  to  mean  what  its  most  strenuous 
advocates  seem  to  imply  that  it  is  not.  We  may  talk  about  the 
evolution  of  the  ideal,  if  we  mean  by  it  the  development  of  its 
efficiency  and  the  domination  of  it  in  consciousness.  But  this  is 
not  the  creation  or  origination  of  it.  The  ideal  only  begins  with 
the  conception  of  morality  in  its  quality  or  intension,  and  leaves 
to  evolution  the  process  of  developing  its  quantity  or  extension, 
increasing  its  efficiency  and  enlarging  the  conscious  range  of  its 
application.  But  the  whole  question  as  to  what  constitutes 
morality,  its  grounds,  and  validity  remains  absolutely  untouched 
by  the  method  of  development.  AVe  have  already  found  that 
morality  must  be  given  in  some  degree  as  a  datum  before  evolu- 
tion can  do  anything  for  it  or  with  it.  We  have  to  determine 
the  ideal  end  of  conduct  in  order  even  to  know  whether  evolution 
involves  progress  or  not.  The  process  evolves  both  good  and 
evil  alike,  and  if  we  were  to  condition  morality  upon  the  prin- 
ciples of  such  a  process  we  should  have  to  abandon  it  for  the 
lack  of  a  criterion  to  distinguish  between  riwht  and  wroncc. 
Hence  the  value  of  the  ideal,  which  is  the  ground  for  justifying 
special  actions,  must  be  determined  by  some  other  means  than 
the  fact  and  the  method  of  evolution. 

]\Ir.  Sidgwick  aptly  distinguishes  between  three  different 
problems,  only  one  of  which  the  method  of  evolution  represents. 
The)'  are  :  (a)  the  existence  of  moral  judgments,  which  is  a  psy- 
chological question  of  fact  and  must  be  determined  by  direct  in- 
trospection supplemented  by  obsen'ation  of  similar  phenomena  in 
others  as  language  and  signs  may  indicate  them  ;  (h)  the  origin 
of  moral  judgments,  which  he  calls  a  "  psychogouical  "  question, 
involving  the  application  of  purely  historical  methods ;  and  (e) 
the  i'(/^irf<7?/ of  moral  judgments,  which  is  the  ethical  question  and 
which  must  be  determined  in  the  same  way  that  the  validity  of 


S4S  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

any  truth  i,s  determined.  "  Indeed,  it  seems  clear,"  says  Mr. 
Sidgwick,  "  that  the  question  as  to  existence  ought  to  be  settled 
before  raising  the  question  of  origin,  since  it  is  premature  to 
inquire  into  the  origin  of  anything  before  we  have  ascertained 
that  it  actually  exists."  Then  it  is  just  as  true  that  validity  is 
independent  of  "  origin,"  because  if  it  were  not,  we  should  have 
to  say  that  the  theory  of  gravitation,  of  Copernican  astronomy, 
of  the  tides,  and  of  any  other  set  of  phenomena  could  not  be  true 
until  we  knew  how  it  originated.  The  matter  of  origin  is  inter- 
esting as  establishing  the  time  when  responsibility  can  be  applied, 
but  it  does  not  condition  the  truth  or  the  value  of  that  which  is 
originated.  Hence  the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  but  a  very  sub- 
ordinate value  in  important  questions  of  Ethics,  and  all  the  noise 
made  about  its  revolutionizing  the  subject  is  simply  sound  and 
fury,  signifying  nothing,  and  conceals  a  most  astonishing  igno- 
rance behind  the  mask  of  knowledge,  while  the  only  service  of 
the  doctrine,  its  i-clation  to  the  application  of  responsibility, 
goes  absolutely  unnoticed. 

J?*;/Vrencc.s. — ^Sliiirliead  :  Elements  of  Ethics,  pp.  125-150  ;  Murray:  In- 
troduction to  Ethics,  pp.  43-58;  Bowne:  Principles  of  Ethics,  pp.  124-163; 
Darwin :  Descent  of  Man,  Chapters  IV.  and  V. ;  Spencer :  Principles  of 
Ethics,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  04-150  ;  Calderwood :  Handbook  of  Moral  Philosophy, 
pp.  95-130  (Fourteenth  Edition) ;  Alexander  :  Moral  Order  and  Progress, 
pp.  297-316,  353-368  ;  Martineau  :  Types  of  Ethical  Theoiy,  Vol.  II.,  pp. 
360-424;  Leslie  Stephen:  Science  of  Ethics,  Chapter  III.,  pp.  93-130; 
Fiske:  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  II.,  Part  IF.,  Chapter  XXII., 
PI).  324-366;  Wundt:  Ethik,  pp.  88-231,  369-372;  Schurman :  The  Eth- 
ical Import  of  Darwinism  ;  Andover  Review,  November,  1886,  pp.  449-466  ; 
April,  1888,  pp.  348-366  ;  New  Englander  and  Yule  Review,  April,  1888, 
pp.  260-280;  September,  1890,  pp.  260-275;  Christian  Thought,  August, 
1891,  pp.  14-3.S;  :\Iind,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  334-345. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY. 

I.  INTRODUCTORY. — The   definition    of    terms   has  thrown 
much  light  upon  what  the  human  mind  means  by  morahty,  but 
it  has  not  determined  anything  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the 
highest  good  or  ideal  end  of  conduct.     It  was  merely  assumed 
that  there  was  such  an  ideal.     We  have  now,  however,  to  enter 
more  carefully  into  the  analysis  of  morality  in  reference  to  its 
grounds,  or  the  reasons  for  its  being  what  it  is  and  for  our  obli- 
gations to  respect  it.     In  determining  its  nature,  we  have  said 
that  two  questions  have  to  be  answered,  and  a  third  question  in 
regard  to  our  knowledge  of  it.  They  are  :  (a)  What  is  right?  {b) 
Why  is  it  right  ?  and  (c)  How  do  we  know  it  is  right  ?     The  an- 
swer to  the  first  question  gives  the  particular  actions  which  are 
right,  or  are  considered  as  right,  such  as  respect  for  life,  honesty, 
purity,  benevolence,   courage,    etc.      The  answer  to  the  second 
question  gives  the  reason  in  some  proximate  or  ultimate  principle 
or  end  for  their  morality,  the  ground  upon  which  they  rest,  and  of 
course  ultimately  the  one  principle  to  which  they  are  reducible. 
The  answer  to  the  third  question  gives  the  process  of  experience 
or  knowledge  by  which  I  am  made  aware  of  this  morality.     It  is 
only  the  latter  two  questions  that  give  rise  to  any  theories  about 
morality.      The    answer  io  the  first   is  merely  a  statement  of 
matters  of  fact   or  matters  of  belief.     But  the  structure  of  the 
human  mind  has  never  been  satisfied  with  a  mere  assertion  of 
what  is  regarded  as  right.     Interests,  both  scientific  and  social, 
demanded   that  we  know  why  such  conceptions  were  accepted 
and  hoAV    we  came  to  have  them.     On  the  one  hand,  the  scien- 
tific impulse  asks  to  have  a  reason  fur  all  the   various  duties 

349 


350  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

imposed  by  men  on  each  other,  if  for  no  other  purpose  than  to 
satisfy  curiosity  about  their  reduction  to  unity.  On  the  other 
hand,  social  interests  demand  that  no  obligation  be  imposed  arbi- 
trarily and  without  any  recognized  princij)le  in  the  nature,  rights, 
and  knowledge  of  the  person  upon  whom  it  is  placed.  Hence 
arises  some  theoretical  explanation  of  what  morality  is  and  how 
we  come  to  know  it.  But  there  has  not  been  any  unanimity  of 
opinion  on  the  matter.  The  attempt  to  explain  Avhy  the  various 
duties  of  common  life  are  binding,  or  why  the  practice  of  them  is 
a  virtue,  has  resulted  in  a  great  variety  of  theories,  each  compet- 
ing for  acceptance  and  supremacy,  and  very  much  unsettling  the 
problem  of  the  nature  of  morality.  In  order,  therefore,  to  under- 
stand the  complexities  of  the  question  and  the  relation  of  these 
various  theories  to  each  other,  before  undertaking  any  direct  solu- 
tion of  the  proljlem  itself,  we  must  classify  the  theories  that  have 
attempted  to  assign  the  ultimate  jorinciple  of  morality. 

II.  CLASSIFICATION  OF  THEORIES.— We  shall  undertake 
in  this  section  nothing  but  a  classification  of  the  various  ways  in 
which  the  question,  why  certain  actions  are  right,  or  why  they 
should  be  done,  has  been  answered,  and  leave  the  discussion  of 
them  until  afterward.  We  shall  be  obliged  to  state  tlie  method 
or  principle  upon  which  each  theory  rests,  which  will  l)c  in  a 
measure  a  definition  of  it.  But  it  will  not  be  necessary  in  the 
classification  to  go  farther. 

The  most  comprehensive  division  of  tlieorios  which  can  be 
recognized,  is  that  which  we  shall  call  the  Subjective  and  the  Ob- 
jective theories.  This  division  coincides  with  ]\Ir.  JMartiueau's 
division  into  psychological  and  unpsychological  theories. 

1st.  Objective  Theories. — 01)jective  theories  of  right  are  those 
which  seek  the  ground  uf  morality  outside  of  tlie  person  upon 
wlioni  it  is  ])inding.  They  represent  some  form  of  external 
nature  or  autliority  and  i)lace  the  reason  fi)r  right  outside  of  all 
control,  accfptauco,  or  consent  of  those  who  must  obey.  But  they 
take  two  fi)i-nis,  the  Onlolo(jinil  and  the  Xomological. 

1.  Ontolo(;ical  Tiii:(»nii;s. — Tiiese  theories  represent  the 
foundation  of  morality  as  found  in  the  nature  of  beinfj,  the  con- 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      3ol 

stitutiou  of  ultimate  reality,  and  again  appear  in  two  forms,  ac- 
cording as  they  are  theistic  or  naturalistic.  We  shall  call  them 
the  Theological  and  the  Cosmological  theories. 

(a)  The  Theological  Theory. — This  theory  places  the  founda- 
tion of  right  in  the  nature  of  God.  Its  chief  object  by  those  who 
have  supported  it  has  been  to  give  it  a  firmer  and  more  lasting 
character  and  greater  authority  than  if  it  were  founded  in 
human  nature,  which  seems  to  be  constituted  by  so  many  conflict- 
ing impulses  as  to  make  it  of  doubtful  value  as  a  judge  or  basis 
of  right.  Hence,  assuming  that  God  represents  the  Absolute,  it 
was  designed  in  that  way  to  give  absoluteness  and  eternity  to 
moral  law,  Avhile  also  indicating  the  jyersonality  of  its  authority. 
The  theory  is  metaphysical  in  its  character  and  is  apt  to  con- 
ceive morality  as  a  thing  apart  from  the  intelligence  which  is  to . 
accept  and  obey  it.  Instances  of  it  are  Hodge  and  many  scholas- 
tics. 

(6)  The  Cosmological  Theory. — This  doctrine  places  the  foun- 
dation of  right  in  the  nature  of  things.  This  view  is  contrasted 
with  the  theological  theory  in  the  attempt  to  give  moral  law  an 
impersonal  source  and  authority.  It  arose  in  opposition  to 
sophistic  doctrine,  and  endeavors  to  hold  that  moral  distinctions 
are  eternal  and  binding  even  upon  God.  It  avoids  the  phrase- 
ology of  the  theological  theory  in  order  to  avoid  any  imjilica- 
tions  that  might  connect  moral  law  with  arbitrary  power.  It  is 
not  essentially  opposed  to  that  theory,  but  hopes  to  give  a  more 
impersonal  expression  to  the  basis  of  morality.  The  best  illus- 
trations of  the  theory  are  Plato,  Cudworth,  and  some  minor 
writers,  probably  including  Price  and  Clarke. 

2.  NoMOLOGiCAL  THEORIES. — Noniological  theories  of  moral- 
it}'  found  it  in  some  way  upon  the  fiat  of  power,  the  arbi- 
trary creation  of  will.  They  refer  morality  directly  to  mere 
authority,  while  the  theory  referring  it  to  the  nature  of  God  only 
invokes  authority  indirectly.  In  the  nomological  theories  moral 
distinctions  are  supposed  to  have  a  beginning  in  time  and  that 
the  nature  of  the  world  might  have  been  without  any  relations 
or  phcnoniena  that  we  call  moral.     Hence  they  subject  morality 


852  ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

to  the  fiat  of  arbitrary  power,  and  are  divided  into  two  classes, 
according  as  this  power  is  divine  or  human.  We  shall  call  them 
Theo-volitional  and  Political  or  Conventional  theories. 

(a)  The  Theo-volitional  Theory. — This  theory  refers  the  ground 
and  authority  of  morality  to  the  tvill  of  God,  as  distinguished 
from  His  nature  and  in  its  pure  form  admits  or  rather  affirms 
that  this  will  has  supreme  power  to  create  and  uncreate  moral 
distinctions.  It  opposes  the  power  of  man  to  do  the  same  on 
the  ground  that  it  is  finite  and  that  whatever  he  is  able  to  do 
must  be  traced  to  the  creative  will  of  the  Deity.  The  doctrine 
arose  in  pre-sophistic  times,  when  there  was  the  habit  of  tracing 
everything  to  the  gods  and  has  been  continued  by  men  who 
hoped  thereby  to  exalt  the  divine  by  refusing  to  admit  any 
limitations  to  divine  power.  The  exponents  of  it  are  Jonathan 
Dymond,  some  scholastics,  and  pre-sophistic  writers. 

(6)  The  Political  Theory. — This  theory  founds  moral  distinc- 
tions upon  the  will  of  man  ;  not  upon  the  will  of  every  man,  but 
upon  that  of  the  ruling  power,  with  or  without  the  consent  of 
the  subject.  It  was  a  doctrine  designed  originally  to  explain 
the  origin  and  authority  of  j^ositive  laws  and  institutions,  and  not 
to  assign  the  abstract  foundation  of  right  and  wrong.  But  the 
irresponsibility  of  the  monarch  or  ruler  made  it  practically  an 
account  of  the  ultimate  source  and  authority  of  morality,  this 
being  interpreted  as  not  having  any  obligations  beyond  the 
power  of  the  executive  to  enforce  it.  It  was  maintained  by  the 
Sophists,  ^rachiuvclli,  and  Hobbes. 

2d.  Subjective  Theories. — This  class  of  theories  traces  the 
foundation  of  moral  distinctions  to  the  nature  of  the  reason  in 
the  person  vpnn  whom  morality  is  binding.  They  are,  therefore, 
contrasted  with  the  objective  point  of  view  in  this  important 
particular,  that  the  subjecVs  own  nature  is  the  first  thing  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  order  to  establish  any  responsibility  what- 
ever, or  the  liability  to  praise  and  blame.  They  wliolly  eliini- 
nate  the  idea  of  authoHty  as  external  power,  or  if  they  retain  it 
at  all  do  so  under  the  idea  of  legitimacy.  They  are  also 
opposed   to  the  objective  theories  as  psychological  are  opjxised  to 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       353 

metaphysical  doctrines,  and  are  divided  into  two  subordinate 
classes  according  as  right  is  determined  by  the  end  which  it  at- 
tains or  by  the  way  it  is  known.  They  are  the  Teleological  and 
the  Gnosiological  theories. 

1.  Teleological  Theories — Teleological  theories  measure 
right  and  wrong  by  the  ends  sought.  Reference  to  an  end  is  the 
meaning  of  the  word  teleological,  and  hence  we  intend  by  it  to 
describe  all  those  views  which  estimate  conduct  with  reference, 
not  to  external  powers  or  authorities,  nor  to  the  nature  of  ex- 
ternal existence,  but  to  the  ends  and  consequences  of  it.  They 
do  not  look  at  conduct  merely  as  action  in  the  abstract  and  as 
something  having  intrinsic  moral  qualities  apart  from  its  relation 
as  a  means  to  something  else,  but  only  as  an  intermediate  agency 
for  attaining  or  preventing  the  attainment  of  the  good.  If  the 
end  be  good,  the  act  is  right ;  if  the  end  be  bad,  the  act  is 
wrong.  But  teleological  theories  divide  upon  the  question  as  to 
what  the  good  is.  Some  make  it  pleasure  or  happiness  (excel- 
lence of  feeling),  others  virtue  or  perfection  (excellence  of  being). 
Hence  there  are  two  classes  of  teleological  theories,  Hedonism  and 
what  I  shall  venture  to  call  Moralism. 

(a)  Hedonism.  —  Hedonism  (Greek  i)dovt]  —  pleasure)  de- 
notes the  theory  which  makes  pleasure  the  ultimate  end  of  con- 
duct. Sometimes  the  term  is  used  to  denote  only  that  view  which 
makes  the  end  sensuous  pleasure,  and  hence  contrasts  with  Eu- 
dcemonism,  which  is  sometimes  used  to  denote  the  theory  based 
upon  intellectual  pleasures.  But  this  distinction  serves  no  other 
purpose  than  a  historical  one.  It  merely  describes  the  contro- 
versy that  turned  partly  upon  what  was  presumed  to  be  the 
original  meaning  of  the  Greek  term  for  pleasure  (}}Sov?j),  which 
many  of  the  philosophers  of  the  ea-rly  period,  not  having  carried 
analysis  very  far,  limited  to  the  pleasure  of  sense,  and  partly 
upon  the  distinction  between  Aristotle's  doctrine  and  the  Ethics 
of  the  Sophists.  •  But  Aristotle  meant  iceljare  by  svdaijxovia 
and  not  pleasure  or  happiness  as  feeling,  and  we  should  not  con- 
fuse his  distinction  between  moral  and  intellectual  pleasures, 
with  the  ultimate  conception  of  his  system,  though  it  includes 


354  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

both  elements.  Moreover,  even  iu  Greek  usage,  pleasure 
Qjdovj'])  liad  a  general  meaning,  very  noticeable  in  Plato, 
broader  than  mere  sensuous  feeling,  and  might  denote  any 
mental  elation  or  emotion  of  that  type,  though  probably  the 
most  frequent  use  of  the  term  was  the  sensuous.  And  again, 
modern  usage,  both  in  regard  to  the  generic  meaning  of  the  term 
pleasure  and  that  of  "hedonic"  and  "hedonism,"  justifies  the 
application  which  we  intend  to  make  of  the  term  to  denote 
every  form  of  theory  which  applies  to  pleasure  as  the  criterion 
and  end  of  morality.  Hence  we  shall  mean  by  Hedonism  the 
whole  class  of  theories  which  appeal  to  pleasure,  whatever  its 
kind  or  degree,  and  in  this  way  contrast  it  with  the  class  of 
theories  which  deny  the  morality  of  pursuing  mere  pleasure. 

But  the  pleasure  sought  may  refer  either  to  that  of  the  subject 
or  to  that  of  the  object,  to  the  individual  himself,  or  to  others 
comprising  the  family,  tribe,  or  society  at  large.  On  this  basis 
Hedonism  takes  two  forms  according  as  the  pleasure  is  individu- 
alistic or  universalistic,  egoistic  or  altruistic.  Hence  there  are 
two  subdivisions  of  the  theory,  which  we  may  call  Egoism  and 
Altruism,  or  Individualism  (ethical)  and  Socialism.  Utilita- 
rianism may  be  added  as  combining  both  of  them.  Egoism 
or  Individualism  asserts  that  all  conduct  must  be  judged  as 
good  or  bad  according  to  the  consequences  to  the  iudividu-al 
sul)ject.  Altruism  or  Socialism,  on  the  other  hand,  includes 
the  pleasure  or  happiness  of  others  and  may  require  the  sacri- 
fice of  some  happiness  on  the  part  of  individuals,  perhaps 
the  minority,  to  that  of  others,  the  majority.  The  question  of 
kinds  of  pleasure  here  does  not  enter  into  the  definition  or 
division  of  the  theory. 

(b)  Moralism. — Moralism  is  the  type  of  theories  which  deny 
that  pleasure  is  the  highest  good,  and  substitute  some  other  form 
of  excellence  which  is  often  expressed  by  the  term  virtue  as  con- 
trasted with  plea.surc.  This  virtue  or  excelleifce  may  take  two 
fijrms,  excellence  of  being  and  excellence  of  will.  Accordingly 
we  find  two  forms  of  Moralism,  which  we  shall  call  Perj'ectlonism 
and  Formalism.     Perfectionism  is  the  theory  which  makes  2>c>'- 


THE  THEORIES  A^D  XATUEE  OF  MORALITY      355 


fectlon  the  highest  good  and  foundation  of  all  virtue  instead  of 
pleasure.  Formalism  is  the  theory  -which  makes  good-will  the 
highest  good  instead  of  pleasure.  It  demands  nothing  but 
obedience  to  the  sense  of  duty  or  categorical  imperative  and  the 
keeping  of  consequences  out  of  view.  The  theory  was  held  in 
its  purest  form  by  Kant. 

2.  GxosiOLOGiCAL  THEORIES. — The  term  gnosiological  is  de- 
rived from  two  words  (yiyvcocTKCJ,  to  know,  and  Xoyos,  dis- 
course), and  is  here  used  to  denote  that  class  of  theories  which  are 
concerned,  not  with  the  nature,  but  with  the  hioicledge,  of  mo- 
rality, namely,  ^nth  the  origin  of  our  ideas  of  it.  These  theories 
divide  upon  the  question  whether  our  conception  of  morality  is 
native  or  acquired,  a  priori  or  a  jiosteriori,  intuitive  or  empirical. 
Hence  there  are  two  forms  of  gnosiological  theories,  which  we 
shall  call  Intuitionism  and  Empiricism.  They  are  in  efiect  the 
same  as  those  Avhich  were  discussed  under  the  problems  of  Con- 
science. Intuitionism  holds  that  moral  ideas  are  native  and  im- 
mediate objects  of  perception  to  all  rational  minds.  Empiricism 
holds  that  they  are  derived  by  experience. 

The  following  is  a  tabular  review  of  this  classification : 


Objective 


Subjective 


Ontological 
Xomological 

Teleological 
Gnosiological  \ 


Theological  =  The  Nature  of  God. 
Cosmological  =  The  Nature  of  Things. 
Theo-volitional  =  The  Will  of  God. 
Political  —  The  Will  of  Man.  Convention. 

{Egoism  or  Individualism. 
Altruism  or  Socialism. 
Utilitarianism. 

Ar^-^i-orv,  /  Perfectionism. 
JNlorahsm  <  -c^         ,. 

t  I'ormalism. 

f  General. 

\  Particular. 
I    T7.       .  •  •         f  General. 
[Empiricism  {particular. 


Intuitionism 


It  will  be  observed  in  this  classification  that  we  have  made  no 
place  for  evolution.  After  what  has  been  said  about  the  rela- 
tion of  that  doctrine  to  Ethics  it  should  be  apparent  why  we 
have  not  given  it  a  distinct  place  in  the  scheme.  In  the  first 
place,  however,  as  usually  maintained,  the  theory  is  a  complex 


356  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

one  involving  several  of  the  points  of  view  in  this  classification. 
It  is  partly  cosmological  in  its  conception  of  the  problem ;  partly 
teleological,  being  usually  utilitarian,  but  sometimes  perfection- 
istic,  and  sometimes  both,  and  partly  gnosiological  in  that  it  is 
always  empirical.  In  the  second  place,  after  defining  it  as 
properly  occupied  with  the  origin  of  morality  and  of  moral  con- 
ceptions, we  must  shut  it  out  of  a  place  in  all  but  the  last  class 
of  theories  which  recognize  only  the  origin  of  the  conceptions  of 
morality,  not  its  nature.  Hence,  evolution  as  a  general  theory 
cannot  stand  in  this  scheme,  but  it  is  partly  represented  by  em- 
jiiricism. 

We  have  also  to  remark  the  place  given  to  utilitarianism, 
which  may  have  its  individualistic  or  egoistic  and  its  socialistic 
or  altruistic  side.  We  have  here  made  it  co-ordinate  with  the 
other  two.  This  is  not  because  it  necessarily  excludes  both,  but 
because  its  historical  character  has  been  altruistic,  while  admitting 
that  utility,  the  great  principle  of  this  theory,  may  apply  to  the 
individual  as  well  as  to  society.  But  the  fact  that  utilitarian- 
ism has  always  stood  oj^posed  to  the  selfish  view  of  life,  which  is 
the  only  conception  that  can  oppose  egoism  to  altruism,  justifies 
our  setting  aside  what  may  be  called  individualistic  utilitarian- 
ism and  using  the  terms  "  utility  "  and  "  utilitarian  "  as  refer- 
ring to  the  good  of  the  whole,  including  the  individual,  and  not 
to  the  good  of  the  individual  alone,  nor  to  the  good  of  the  ma- 
jority alone.  We  shall  see  farther  reasons  again  for  this 
jirocedure. 

As  the  classification  stands,  however,  it  is  intended  to  compre- 
hend all  the  existing  points  of  view  in  regard  to  morality.  We 
liave  not  divided  them  in  any  way  to  make  them  mutually  ex- 
clusive, but  only  as  historical  develo2>ment  has  defined  them, 
and  may  discover  something  al)out  their  various  relations  as  the 
discussion  continues.  We  shall  give  but  a  brief  examination  to 
the  first  two  great  classes  of  theories  and  reserve  the  most  of  the 
discussion  for  Hedonism  and  Moraliinn,  while  referring  students 
and  readers  to  tlie  chapter  on  the  origin  of  conscience  for  the 
treatment  of  gnosiological  theories. 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      Sol 

III  EXAMINATION  OF  GENERAL  THEORIES. — In  this 
diseussion  we  shall  take  up  only  the  Ontological  and  the  Nomo- 
logical  theories,  and  dispose  of  them  as  briefly  as  possible.  "We 
must  find  what  place  they  occupy  in  the  discussion  of  Ethics  and 
determine  their  merits  and  demerits. 

1st.  The  Ontological  Theories — As  already  explained,  the 
theories  bearing  this  characteristic  are  concerned  with  the  ulti- 
mate foundation  of  morality  in  the  very  nature  of  the  Absolute, 
whether  it  be  regarded  as  personal  or  impersonal.  They  oppose 
all  suppositious  that  moral  distinctions  are  merely  accidents  in 
the  course  of  the  world  and  capable  of  being  asserted  and  nulli- 
fied at  pleasure.  In  that  sense  both  the  theological  and  the  cos- 
mological  points  of  view  may  be  true  at  the  same  time.  Ulti- 
mately all  things  that  are  a  constitutional  part  of  the  world  and 
ineradicable  in  it,  are  and  must  be  referred  in  some  way  to  the 
Absolute ;  and  it  makes  very  little  difference  whether  we  regard 
it  as  personal  or  impersonal,  so  far  as  the  mere  reference  of 
morality  is  concerned.  This  is  only  to  say  that  both  of  these 
theories  must  be  true  in  some  sense  in  all  cases,  no  matter  what  is 
said  about  other  theories.  The  criticism  to  be  made  against  both, 
however,  is  that  neither  of  them  solves  the  problem  of  scientific 
Ethics,  which  is  rather  to  provide  the  e7id  of  conduct  which  will 
subordinate  all  other  things  to  its  attainment  than  to  settle  the 
metaphysical  ground  of  morality,  which  at  all  hazards  must  be 
found  in  the  Absolute.  This  is  apparent  in  the  fact  that  skepti- 
cism of  the  divine  existence  simply  shatters  all  power  in  the  theo- 
logical theory,  while  it  leaves  untouched  the  natural  desire  to 
determine  the  highest  good.  Ethics  has  to  do  with  the  summum 
honum,  and  not  Avith  the  moral  nature,  of  the  Absolute,  and 
hence  though  it  is  true  that  its  metaphysical  affiliations,  as  those 
of  all  the  sciences,  connect  it  with  the  Absolute  and  with  the 
metaphysics  of  the  Absolute,  the  question  of  the  highest  good 
does  not.  ^Moreover,  to  insist  on  adopting  the  theological  theory 
prior  to  the  formulation  of  any  practical  rules  for  life,  is  to  shift 
the  whole  controversy  over  into  theology,  requiring  the  settle- 
ment of  both  God's  nature  and  existence  before  we  could  talk 


358  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

about  the  possibility  of  iuclucing  skeptical  men  to  be  righteous. 
There  is.  a  ground  upon  which  moral  theory  can  stand  without 
contradicting  the  theistic  view  and  yet  without  conditioning 
morality  upon  the  acceptance  of  it.  This  is  the  only  rational 
coui'se  to  be  taken  where  the  main  object  of  Ethics  is,  first, 
to  settle  the  highest  good,  and  second,  to  furnish  a  practical, 
rather  than  a  metaphysical,  basis  for  morality.  Precisely  the 
same  remarks  can  be  made  in  reference  to  the  cosmological 
theory.  It  has  the  same  merits  and  defects  as  the  theological 
view,  and  must  be  treated  in  the  same  Avay.  It  evades  equally 
with  the  theological  position  the  real  issue  of  the  question, 
though  it  is  also  true,  and  hence  it  may  be  dismissed  without 
controverting  it. 

2d.  The  Nomological  Theories. — As  already  defined,  these 
theories  base  morality  upon  the  arbitrary  agency  of  creative 
power,  namely,  upon  will  of  some  kind.  The  one  objection  to 
such  theories  is  that  morality  cannot  be  a  creation  of  will  without 
involving  a  denial  of  the  moral  character  of  the  will  or  agent 
who  thus  creates  it.  The  universal  conception  of  will  is  that 
it  is  subject  to  moral  law,  and  what  is  not  so  subject  to  it  is 
not  will  or  personal  at  all.  To  make  God  independent  of 
moral  law,  and  able  to  make  anything,  even  wrong,  moral,  is 
not  only  monstrous,  but  is  a  distinct  abandonment  and  con- 
tradiction of  theism.  Nor  is  it  any  help  to  such  a  theory  to 
make  God's  will  perfect  or  an  expression  of  his  nature.  For 
this  may  be  true ;  but  it  abandons  the  nomological  for  the  onto- 
logical  doctrine,  which  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  nomological  to  set 
aside.  jMoreover,  to  make  his  will  perfect  is  to  admit  that  this 
moral  quality  is  not  a  creation  of  the  will ;  for  it  cannot  create 
itself  Hence  it  is  essentially  absurd  to  suppose  that  will, 
whether  finite  or  infinite,  can  serve  as  the  basis  of  morality.  In 
addition  to  fatal  criticisms  of  this  kind,  nomological  theories  are 
encumbered  with  the  ol)jcctionalile  implications  of  arbitrary 
authority  exerted  to  coerce  obedience  against  the  dictates  of  rea- 
son and  conscience.  They  were  put  forward  in  times  of  political 
or  ecclesia-stical  tyranny  in  order  to  frighten  men  into  sulyoction 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      359 

to  bad  government,  and  nothing  remains  to  support  tbem  but  a 
desire  to  do  God  a  false  bonor,  on  tbe'  one  band,  and  justify 
despotic  government,  on  tbe  otber. 

But  Avbile  tbe  tbeoriies  are  not  an  adequate  explanation  of  tbe 
moral  law  and  of  its  origin,  tbey  may  bave  an  important  tbougbt 
concealed  in  tbem  and  not  even  detected  by  tbeir  advocates. 
Taking  up  tbe  tbeo-volitional  doctrine  first  we  can  say,  tbat 
wbile  tbe  will  of  God  is  not  tbe  ground  of  morality,  it  may  be  a 
good  reason  for  obeying  it.  Assuming  tbat  God  exists  and  tbat, 
according  to  tbe  moral  law  wbicb  He  recognizes.  He  commands 
respect  for  it,  tben  tbat  command  is  a  reason  for  obeying,  but 
not  a  ground  for  the  nature  of  the  law.  If  this  is  what  tbe 
theory  wishes  to  express  there  can  be  no  objection  to  it.  But 
unfortunately  this  has  not  been  its  language  or  its  intention.  It 
has  sought  to  exalt  the  power  of  God  upon  the  assumption  of  a 
false  notion  of  infinite  power,  and  can  deceive  none  but  small 
thinkers.  Then  taking  up  tbe  political  or  conventional  theory 
tbe  argument  against  tbe  capacity  of  tbe  human  will  to  create 
or  serve  as  tbe  basis  of  morality  is  an  a  fortiori  one.  No  one  but 
the  advocate  of  the  most  absolute  despotism,  whether  monar- 
chical or  democratic,  could  seriously  make  such  a  claim.  Indeed, 
we  may  safely  leave  to  tbe  overwhelming  revolt  of  mankind 
against  arbitrary  power  tbe  refutation  of  such  a  theory,  and  not 
give  it  any  serious  attention.  But  while  convention  cannot 
originate  morality  or  moral  distinctions,  it  can  do  much  to  make 
them  effective.  Convention  always  appeals  to  reason,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  to  justify  the  application  of  power  to  enforce  a  certain 
course  of  conduct,  and  thus  acknowledges  a  prior  jnora /  law  to 
its  own  positive  enactments  and  determining  their  character. 
But  it  does  not  create  tbat  law.  Will  may  enforce  the  moral 
law,  but  it  cannot  create  it.  It  may  render  it  efficient,  but  it 
cannot  be  the  basis  of  it.  This  determines  tbe  limitations  of  all 
nomological  theories. 

IV.  CRITICISM  OF  HEDONISM.— As  already  defined  hedon- 
ism is  the  theory  which  bases  morality  upon  pleasure.  It  takes 
its  various  forms  according  to  tbe  object  which  gives  the  pleasure, 


360  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

and  heuce  this  may  be  bigli  or  low  in  cliaracter.  But  since  the 
only  form  of  hedonism  which  has  received  any  special  develop- 
ment is  utilitarianism  we  may  give  the  most  attention  to  that 
conception  of  it.  A  fe^w  observations,  however,  preliminary  to 
that  view  are  necessary  in  order  to  clear  the  ground.  AVe  shall, 
therefore,  notice  briefly  the  theory  of  egoism. 

1st.  Egoistic  Hedonism. — It  will  not  be  the  hedonistic  aspect 
of  this  theory,  but  the  egoistic,  that  will  receive  present  attention. 
There  is  a  striking  ambiguity  about  the  term  "  egoism  "  which 
must  be  cleared  up  before  contrasting  the  theory  by  that  name  too 
distinctly  with  utilitarian  hedonism.  The  term  may  denote  (a) 
exclusive  reference  to  self  in  conduct,  or  (ft)  reference  to  self 
while  not  conflicting  with  the  happiness  of  others.  The  former 
conception  if  legitimated  would  lead  to  the  sacrifice  of  society  or 
others  to  the  individual,  and  means  that  selfishness  is  the  crite- 
rion of  morality.  This  is  so  palpably  absurd  that  the  theory  can 
have  no  footing  whatever  in  that  sense  and  is  universally  con- 
demned because  what  is  moral  involves  the  conservation  of  social 
order  and  a  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  individual  of  all  that 
does  not  admit  equal  liberty  and  rights  on  the  part  of  others. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  as  absurd  to  insist  that  a  man 
should  have  no  reference  to  himself  whatever  in  the  attempt  to 
attain  the  ideal,  and  hence  moralists  admit  that  a  man  should 
have  reference  to  himself  in  his  conduct,  but  assert  that  he 
should  not  have  reference  to  himself  alone ;  and  if  egoism 
meant  merely  "reference  to  self"  without  implying  anything 
alxjut  sacrifice,  either  of  others  or  of  self,  it  would  not  con- 
flict with  utilitarianism.  But  it  is  only  in  the  selfish  sense 
that  the  term  describes  a  theory  opposed  to  all  conceptions  of 
morality  whatever,  and  as  this  point  of  view  is  universally 
condciiincd  there  is  no  use  in  giving  it  any  serious  attention. 
The  (iiily  form  of  hedonism  aI)out  which  any  controversy  cen- 
ters is  that  <jf  utilitarian  hedonism,  which  intends  to  avoid 
the  distinction  between  egoism  and  altruism  altogether  as  op- 
posing conceptions  and  to  comprehend  the  proper  aspects  of 
both. 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       361 

2cl.  Altruistic  Hedonism.  —  This  conception  also  has  an 
equivocal  import.  It  may  denote  action  (a)  exclusively  in  refer- 
ence to  others  and  with  the  sacrifice  of  vSelf,  or  (&)  in  reference  to 
others  without  any  sacrifice  of  self.  The  absurdity  of  the  former 
demand,  namely,  that  the  individual  must  sacrifice  always  and 
everything  in  order  to  be  moral,  is  so  apparent  that  the  only 
form  of  altrusism  which  can  be  recognized  as  rational  is  the  sec- 
ond, which  insists  that  a  man  should  include  a  reference  to  oth- 
ers in  his  conduct.  But  this  will  not  shut  out  a  direct  or  indi- 
rect reference  to  himself,  and  hence  the  egoistic  and  altruistic 
position  can  be  united  by  shutting  out  selfishness,  on  the  one 
hand,  which  involves  an  unfair  sacrifice  of  others,  and  unfair 
sacrifice  of  self,  on  the  other.  We  might  even  say  that  the 
only  difficulty  with  the  two  theories  is  found  in  taking  either  of 
them  in  its  exclusive  sense.  That  is,  conduct  exclusively  egoistic 
and  exclusively  altruistic  does  not  come  up  to  the  ideal  standard 
of  morality,  where  all  individuals  must  reap  the  same  rewards 
and  have  the  same  obligations.  The  only  conception,  therefore, 
which  can  satisfy  the  mind  is  that  of  universal  hedonism,  which 
we  shall  intend  to  be  expressed  by  the  theory  of  utilitarianism. 
This  conception  shall  be  intended  to  express  the  common  points 
of  merit  in  both  the  others,  so  that  the  question  of  the  reference  of 
conduct  to  personality  may  be  disposed  of  and  we  can  turn 
attention  wholly  to  the  element  of  pleasure  in  it. 

3d.  Arguments  for  Utilitarian  Hedonism. — As  utilitarianism 
should  be  defined,  it  is  the  theory  which  makes  utility  the  crite- 
rion and  end  of  conduct,  while  utility  is  to  be  measured  in  terms 
of  pleasure.  We  here  assume  that  the  reference  to  persons  is 
understood  and  that  the  only  utilitarianism  which  can  stand  any 
criticism  at  all  must  be  that  which  tries  to  lay  down  rules  for 
the  good  of  the  ivhole,  and  not  for  the  good  of  the  individual  at 
the  expense  of  others,  nor  for  the  good  of  the  majority  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  individual.  This  question  once  disposed  of  we  have 
left  only  the  more  important  matter,  whether  the  hedonistic  posi- 
tion, or  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  can  be  an  adequate  determination 
of  morality.     The  supreme  question  is  whether  the  hedonistic  cud 


3G2  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

of  conduct  is  the  true  oue  or  not.  We  must  examine  carefully 
both  sides  of  it. 

1.  The  Fact  that  all  Men  Seek  Pleasure  as  a  Good. — 
The  extent  to  which  men  seek  pleasure  and  avoid  pain  is  an  un- 
questionable fact,  and  it  would  seem  to  have  no  exceptions  even 
in  the  case  of  martyrs  and  self-immolators,  who  in  spite  of  their 
protestations  seem  to  have  some  other  than  the  immediate  pleas- 
ures of  the  present  world.  They  endure  pain  for  some  other 
reward  which  can  only  be  called  pleasure  or  happiness  of  some 
kind,  if  only  for  the  satisfaction  of  living  and  dying  for  a  princi- 
ple. But  apparent  exceptions  like  these  aside,  it  is  a  fact  that 
haj^piness  is  so  universally  regarded,  whatever  our  theories  about 
it,  that  it  would  seem  to  be  the  oue  end  to  which  all  men  subor- 
dinate everything  else. 

"We  use  "  pleasure  "  and  "  happiness  "  rather  synonymously ; 
not  because  a  distinction  between  them  cannot  be  drawn  for 
certain  purposes,  but  because  the  theory  does  not  require  it. 
"Pleasure"  is  often  used  to  denote  the  agreeable  emotion  of  the 
moment,  following  any  particular  action,  while  "  happiness  "  is 
supposed  to  denote  the  calm  and  general  satisfaction  of  life  as  a 
whole,  which  will  be  made  up  of  adjusted  and  rational  i)leasures. 
But  as  happiness  can  only  be  the  "sum  of  pleasures"  or  a  series 
of  adjusted  satisfactions,  it  is  still  essentially  "pleasure"  in  its 
nature,  and  we  do  not  require  at  present  to  distinguish  between 
present  or  momentary  and  deferred  or  pcrnuuient  jilcasures. 
Consequently  the  question  here  regards  only  the  kind  of  thing 
desired,  not  the  time,  durability,  or  amount  of  it.  Happiness 
and  pleasure  may,  therefore,  be  used  interchangeably. 

It  hardly  requires  proof  that  men  are  largely  influenced,  if  not 
wholly  so,  by  pleasure  in  their  conduct.  It  is  so  apparent  to 
the  most  cursory  observation  that  a  denial  of  it,  or  an  apparent 
exception,  at  once  appears  as  a  paradox.  We  have  only  to  look 
around  u.s,  apix'al  to  the  experience  and  ol)servation  of  everyone 
we  meet,  and  examine  the  ideals  which  men  i)ursue,  to  see  that 
j)lcasure  is  at  the  b(jttom  of  it  all.  Men  seek  wealth,  honor,  fame, 
power,  knowledge,  andcuUivate  art  all  for  pleasure.     Did  these 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      S63 

possessions  not  conduce  to  happiness  they  wouhl  be  scorned.  It 
is  only  because  they  are  indispensable  means  to  a  desired  form  of 
happiness  that  they  prove  attractive  to  man.  Even  the  miser, 
who  seems  to  seek  wealth  on  its  own  account,  does  it  for  pleasure, 
only  his  pleasui'e  is  not  found  in  spending  and  consuming  it  in 
vain  show  and  Avaste,  but  in  the  consciousness  of  security  and 
power  against  certain  kinds  of  misfortune.  The  contest  of  life  is 
for  security  against  pain,  and  mankind  looks  ever  to  the  resources 
which  obtain  the  most  satisfaction  and  prevent  the  most  pain. 
"  Nature,"  says  Bentham  in  an  eloquent  passage,  "  has  placed 
mankind  under  the  governance  of  two  sovereign  masters,  ^aui  and 
pleasure.  It  is  for  them  alone  to  point  out  what  we  ought  to  do, 
as  well  as  to  determine  what  we  shall  do.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
standard  of  right  and  wrong,  on  the  other,  the  chain  of  causes 
and  effects,  are  fastened  to  their  throne.  They  govern  us  in  all 
we  do,  in  all  we  say,  in  all  we  think ;  every  effort  we  can  make  to 
throw  off  our  subjection  will  serve  but  to  demonstrate  and  con- 
firm it.  In  other  words,  a  man  may  pretend  to  abjure  their  em- 
pire ;  but  in  reality  he  will  remain  subject  to  it  all  the  while." 

The  argument  throughout  is  intended  to  be  more  than  a  state- 
ment of  the  mere  fact  that  man  pursues  pleasure  or  is  under  its 
dominion.  It  assumes  or  asserts  also  that  everything  else  is 
subordinated  to  it.  At  the  same  time  it  is  true  that  the  utilita- 
rian too  often  fails  to  distinguish  between  two  distinct  things  in 
this  connection,  namely,  the  question  of  fact  (de  facto)  and  the 
question  of  right  (de  jure).  He  does  not  distinguish  between  the 
question  regarding  what  man  does  pursue,  and  what  it  is  ideal 
for  him  to  pursue ;  between  what  he  does  and  what  he  ought  to 
do.  But  in  showing  what  a  constitutional  place  pleasure  has  in 
his  life,  and  assuming  that  its  nature,  as  a  good,  will  not  be  de- 
nied, he  simply  goes  on  to  discuss  the  question  as  if  actual  prac- 
tice decided  for  us  the  ideal  goal  of  human  endeavor,  and  so  in- 
tends to  recognize,  by  his  description  of  man's  actual  conduct 
and  the  subordination  of  all  Oixlinary  ends  to  happiness,  the 
ideal  and  ultimate  nature  of  pleasure  as  the  good.  The  argument, 
then,  is  that  experience  so  reflects  the  direction  of  all  man's  subor- 


3G4  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

(liimtc  ends  to  pleasure  that  we  cannot  but  recognize  it  as  the  one 
end  which  determines  the  merit  of  conduct  rehated  to  it.  Tliat 
is  to  say,  men,  rational  men,  pursue  wealth,  or  fame,  or  honor,  not 
for  their  own  sake,  ])ut  for  the  happiness  or  contentment  Avhich 
they  bring,  either  directly  or  indirectly.  It  is  only  the  irrational 
man  that  will  make  wealth  an  end  in  itself  In  fact,  such  a 
man  only  appears  to  do  so.  His  real  object  is  also  pleasure, 
and  except  for  the  means  used  he  could  not  be  distinguished 
from  the  spendthrift.  Wherever  we  turn  we  find  all  paths  of 
hujnan  endeavor  leading  to  the  same  goal,  happiness,  and  this 
end  docs  not  seem  to  serve  any  remoter  purpose.  On  this  ac- 
count the  utilitarian  contends  that  it  must  l^e  the  highest  good 
and  standard  of  virtue,  or  of  the  quality  of  conduct. 

2.  TnE  CoMMENsuRABiLiTY  OF  PLEASURES. — One  fact  es- 
sential to  utilitarian  hedonism  is  the  supposition  that  pleasures  can 
differ  only  in  qiiantitij  or  intensity,  and  not  in  quality  or  inton- 
sion.  Bentham  and  Epicurus  both  held  that  pleasures  are  all  of 
the  same  kind,  and  that  the  differences  we  remark  on  the  occasion 
of  them  are  differences  in  the  objects  that  cause  them  and  not  in 
the  feelings  themselves.  That  this  is  essential  to  the  theory  will 
be  made  clearer  when  we  come  to  criticise  it,  but  for  the  present 
we  must  remark  that  unless  they  are  the  same  in  their  ultimate 
quality  there  is  no  possil)ility  of  measuring  and  comparing  them 
so  as  to  determine  when  one  is  to  be  sacrificed  for  another,  involv- 
ing a  greater  amount  of  good.  The  utilitarian  must  admit  that 
there  are  actions  bringing  pleasure  which  he  nuist  avoid  and  con- 
demn, and  hence  the  fact  raises  the  question  whether  it  is  possible 
under  such  conditions  to  regard  pleasure  as  a  criterion  at  all.  But 
the  utilitarian  saves  his  position  here  by  remarking  that  pleasure 
has  various  degrees  of  intensity,  purity,  duration,  certitude,  propin- 
quity, and  fecundity,  all  of  which  enable  us  to  compare  one  pleasure 
with  another  and  to  reject  that  of  the  lesser  degree  for  the 
greater.  Tluis  the  reason  that  intemperance  Is  condemned  in 
Hpiteof  the  pleasures  connected  with  it,  is  that  these  pleasures  are 
r\oi  pure,  ov  productive  of  future  pleasure.  Tiicy  are  mixed  with 
pains  either  present  or  future,  or  are  less  intense  than  the  pleas- 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       365 

ures  of  terapcrauce.  Ou  the  other  hand,  the  pleasures  of  temper- 
ance are  purer,  more  intense,  more  durable  and  more  prolific  of 
future  pleasure  than  intemperance.  In  the  same  way  theft,  mur- 
der, unchastity,  inveracity,  and  any  other  wrong  may  be  treated. 
Whatever  pleasure  they  give  is  offset  by  the  superior,  intenser, 
purer  and  more  prolific  pleasure  of  their  opposite  virtues,  which 
condemns  them  on  that  ground.  The  right  lies  in  the  direction 
of  the  purer  and  more  intense  pleasure,  and  all  actions  can  be 
compared  in  this  respect.  They  can  be  measured  in  terms  of  the 
quantity  of  pleasure  in  which  they  result,  and  this  being  the 
only'  common  element  of  the  various  objects  of  desire,  and  deter- 
minable in  its  degrees,  it  offers  the  one  scientific  explanation  and 
end  of  conduct. 

3.  The  Effect  of  Pleasure  and  Pain  on  Life. — The 
effect  of  pleasure  and  pain  on  life  has  received  a  new  form  of 
statement  and  significance  from  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  though 
the  general  cliaracter  of  it  is  as  old  as  speculation  upon  their  im- 
portance. This  can  be  brought  out  by  a  glance  at  the  various 
conceptions  of  pleasure  and  pain.  Plato  and  his  contemporaries 
generally  regarded  pleasure  as  an  incident  in  the  harmony  of 
healthy  functions,  or  the  index  of  healthy  activity  and  pain  the 
accompaniment  of  the  opposite  kind  of  action.  We  have  here  the 
general  conception  that  pleasure  is  the  result  of  healthy  and  ad- 
justed action  and  pain  of  unhealthy  and  unadjusted  action.  Aris- 
totle adopted  the  same  general  notion,  and  it  was  followed  up  by 
general  acceptance  until  we  find  it  again  in  writers  like  Spencer 
and  Hamilton.  The  latter  defines  pleasure  as  "  the  refliex  of  un- 
impeded and  pain  the  reflex  of  impeded  energy."  Spencer  holds 
that  "pleasure  increases  life  and  pain  decreases  it."  In  all 
these  there  is  the  same  notion,  that  pleasure  results  from  right 
and  pain  from  wrong  action,  so  that  they  can  very  well  be  in- 
dices of  what  is  proper  and  improper.  What  Mr.  Spencer  shows 
in  his  exposition  of  evolution  is  the  enormous  influence  exercised 
by  pleasure  and  pain  upon  the  development  and  the  perfection  of 
life.  Pleasure  is  a  condition  which  conduces  to  higher  and  better 
exercise  of  function  ;  pain  represses  it.      Experiments  seem  to 


366  ■    ELEMEXTS  OF  ETHICS 

show  this  effect,  and  every  one  is  familiar  with  the  fundamental 
maxim  of  the  jDhysician,  which  is  that  the  patient  must  be  kept, 
not  only  from  physical  pain  and  in  pleasant  physical  condition, 
but  also  from  mental  pain  and  in  a  condition  of  cheerfulness  and 
hopefulness.  This  is  emj)loying  pleasure  as  a  curative  agent  and 
shows  how  important  a  place  it  occupies  in  the  economy  of  life. 
Illustrations  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely,  but  they  would  all 
have  the  same  import,  while  the  generalizations  mentioned  are 
sufficient  to  mark  the  value  of  pleasure  and  pain  as  objects  of 
consciousness  and  to  strengthen  the  claim  of  the  utiHtarian  that 
they  are  the  criteria  and  ends  of  conduct. 

4.  The  Practical  Efficiency  of  Pleasure  and  Pain  as 
Motives  to  Conduct. — The  practical  importance  of  taking 
pleasure  and  pain  into  account  is  very  apparent  in  the  use  which 
is  and  can  be  made  of  them  to  affect  right  conduct.  Even  the 
opponents  of  utilitarianism  concede  that  the  most  effective  way 
to  get  duty  performed  is  to  reconcile  it  with  happiness.  If  a  man 
can  be  made  to  see  that  duty  is  less  hard  than  he  imagines;  that  it 
will  compensate  him  in  the  attainment  of  more  and  better  pleasure 
than  the  sacrifice  of  the  moral  law,  he  will  be  more  easily  induced 
to  follow  it.  It  is  in  this  way  that  moralists,  no  matter  of  what 
school,  always  endeavor  to  secure  right  action,  and  in  doing  so, 
concede  the  superior  power  of  the  utilitarian  ideal  as  a  practical 
agent  in  the  attainment  of  what  is  right.  But  whether  they  con- 
cede this  or  not,  every  day  observation  reveals  the  extent  to 
which  it  is  true,  that  jileasure  and  pain  may  be  appealed  to  as  in- 
centives to  right  action,  the  one  of  pursuit  and  the  other  of  aver- 
sion, the  pursuit  of  the  right  and  aversion  to  wrong.  The  whole 
social  fabric  rests  upon  this  principle.  Rewards  and  punishments 
would  mean  absolutely  nothing  and  be  wholly  inefficient  if  this 
principle  were  not  true.  The  adjustment  of  pleasures  and  pains 
by  law  to  meet  the  various  conditions  of  character,  temper,  and 
habit  is  only  the  regulation  of  conduct  by  the  hedonistic  measure 
as  opprs3d  to  any  other  conception  of  moral  infiucnce.  In  fact, 
the  utilitarian  coiiccption  of  morality  is  simply  that  it  conceals 
this  reference  to  pleaisure  and  pain  by  being  too  often  identified 


THE  THEORIES  AXD  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       367 

with  the  supposed  conflict  between  duty  and  interest,  which  is 
in  reality  but  a  conflict  between  two  interests  of  a  different  de- 
gree or  order.  However  this  may  be,  the  whole  social  and 
political  organism  is  based  upon  the  infirmity  of  every  other  mo- 
tive to  action  than  pleasure  and  pain,  and  shows  that  what  we 
call  morality  must  be  expressed  in  terms  of  happiness  before  any 
strong  inducements  can  be  felt  to  realize  it. 

5.  The  Ixcoxsistexcies  of  Opponents  to  the  Theory. — 
Among  the  first  of  these  inconsistencies  is  the  extent  to  which 
the  bitterest  antagonists  of  utilitarianism  are  influenced  by  the 
love  of  pleasure  and  fear  of  pain  in  the  common  afl^airs  of  life. 
A  man  eats  an  apple  and  is  governed  by  its  agreeable  or  dis- 
agreeable taste  in  selecting  it.  If  he  goes  to  a  picnic,  on  an  ex- 
cursion or  a  holiday  vacation,  he  takes  no  account  of  anything 
but  the  pleasure  which  he  expects.  If  such  actions  resulted  in 
pain  to  himself  or  to  others,  he  would  condemn  them  and  never 
think  of  taking  into  account  any  conception  but  pleasure  and 
pain.  Everywhere  but  in  our  theory  of  morality  we  thus  show 
a  supreme  regard  for  pleasure  and  aversion  to  pain.  We  never 
think  of  the  inconsistency  between  our  practice  and  what  our 
transcendental  theory  demands  or  seems  to  demand  of  us,  and 
if  called  upon  to  make  ourselves  consistent  the  theory  would  be 
the  first  thing  sacrificed.  All  the  little  affairs  of  life,  too  often 
supposed  to  be  outside  the  sphere  of  morality,  are  so  involved  in 
judgments  regarding  pleasure  and  pain,  that  once  their  deter- 
mination by  that  quality,  and  at  the  same  time  their  morality, 
are  conceded,  they  become  too  much  identified  with  the  criterion 
of  happiness  to  escape  dependence  upon  the  utilitarian  code. 

Another  inconsistency  supports  the  same  conclusion.  The 
most  uncompromising  opponents  of  utilitarian  hedonism  in 
modern  times  have  been  the  religious  and  theological  minds. 
The  majority  of  them,  however,  and  we  might  say  religious  lay- 
men universally,  while  speaking  with  contempt  of  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure,  have  quite  uniformly  regulated  their  lives  by  the  hopes 
of  happiness  hereafter.  Their  opposition  to  pleasure  turns  out 
to  be  only  an  opposition  to  certain  pleasures  of  this  world  and 


368  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

not  to  pleasure  in  itself.  They  love  the  pleasures  of  tlie  next 
world  as  mucli  as  any  one  could  the  pleasures  of  this.  To  oppose 
utilitarianism  they  would  have  to  insist  that  pleasures  differ  in 
kind  and  not  merely  in  degree,  and  that  the  pleasures  of  the 
hereafter  are  Avholly  unlike  those  of  the  present  world  in  kind. 
But  this  would  wholly  shut  off  a  comparison  and  practically 
imply  that  the  term  "pleasure"  could  not  apply  to  the  two 
states  at  the  same  time,  while  the  manifest  conclusion  from 
applying  the  same  term  to  the  two  conditions  would  be  that  the 
pleasures  were  the  same  in  kind,  and  this  would  only  conceal 
their  utilitarianism  in"  their  doctrine  of  immortality  while  in- 
veighing against  it  in  language.  This  inconsistency,  however,  is 
not  chargeable  to  the  religious  mind  previous  to  Bentham  and 
iNIill,  because  it  was  identified  with  the  utilitarian  principle. 
But  ever  since  utilitarianism  came  to  be  the  property  of  the 
skeptics,  the  antagonism  developed  in  the  religious  field  w'as 
carried  over  to  the  moral,  and  this  inconsistency  appeared  with 
it.  Happiness  of  the  hereafter  was  exchanged  for  that  of  the 
present,  while  the  identity  of  principle  involved  in  both  Avas 
concealed  in  the  difference  of  conditions,  but  not  in  the  state  of 
consciousness  to  be  realized.  Hence  the  supreme  value  placed 
by  the  religionist  upon  eternal  hapjiiness,  and  his  unwillingness 
to  sacrifice  it  at  the  behest  of  any  theory  of  virtue  demanding  a 
disregard  for  immortality,  were  only  proofs  that  the  moral  ideal 
was  that  of  the  utilitarian  ;  only  that  it  embraced  eternity 
rather  than  the  present,  and  purchased  at  the  expense  of  the 
present  in  most  cases.  Moreover,  if  most  men  were  asked  what 
their  ideal  object  in  existence  was  or  would  be,  they  would  no 
doubt  spontaneously  answer  with  the  religious  mind  that  it 
would  be  a  condition  of  supreme  happiness  or  bliss  of  some  kind. 
They  would  differ  in  regard  to  the  objects  that  would  jn'oducc  it. 
Tlic  old  Norseman  would  long  for  Valhalla  with  its  mead  and 
phantom  battles,  in  which  phantom  heroes  are  forever  hewing 
down  shadows  which  f)tdy  rise  again  to  renew  their  ceaseless 
and  bh)od](SS  conflicts.  Tliu  mythological  Greek  would  have 
the  return  of  the  golden  age,  or  the  enjoyment  of  the  garden  of 


THE  THEORIES  AND  XATUliE  OF  MORALITY       3C0 

Hesperides,  or  some  Elysium  which  would  be  free  from  care  and 
toil  and  pain.  The  Christian  would  have  the  New  Jerusalem, 
paved  with  gold  and  enriched  by  every  adornment  that  ever 
fascinated  an  Oriental  imagination,  or  he  might  refine  this  purely 
materialistic  conception  into  a  siiiritual  communion  wdth  God, 
the  bliss  of  a  mind  wholly  at  peace  w'ith  its  maker.  The  Indian 
would  express  it  in  the  happy  hunting-ground  beyond  the  grave, 
and  the  Australian  savage,  according  to  ]Mr.  Spencer,  realizing 
the  value  of  English  money  and  the  beauty  of  English  complexion, 
would  desire  "  to  wake  up  in  the  resurrection  a  white  man  and 
to  have  plenty  of  sixpences."  But  in  all  of  these  there  is  one 
common  element  which  measures  for  each  individual  and  class 
involved  the  value  of  his  ideal,  and  that  is  the  magnified  and 
purified  happiness  which  all  would  expect  to  realize  in  that 
state.  The  utilitarian  principle  is  at  the  basis  of  all  of  them, 
and  any  supposition  of  different  motives  is  only  an  illusion. 

4th.  The  Arguments  against  Utilitarian  Hedonism. — The 
criticism  of  utilitarianism  will  involve  the  consideration  of  some 
views  which  were  not  considered  in  the  arguments  for  it,  notably 
the  views  of  Mill  and  his  school,  because  their  jDositiou,  while  in- 
tended for  the  defense  of  the  doctrine,  were  really  an  abandon- 
ment of  it.  This  will  be  brought  out  in  the  proper  place. 
Moreover,  we  must  also  remark  an  imjDortant  fact  in  the  discus- 
sion which  has  considerable  bearing  upon  our  mode  of  treating 
the  subject.  It  is  the  difference  between  the  demands  of  science 
and  those  of  "  common  sense  "  in  the  question  whether  pleasure 
is  the  highest  good  or  not.  There  is  often  a  feeling,  fostered  by 
utilitarians  themselves,  that  there  is  some  prejudice,  religious, 
moral,  or  aesthetic,  against  the  doctrine  of  utility,  presumably  on 
account  of  its  low  and  materialistic  associations.  This  is,  no 
doubt,  true  in  many  cases,  even  deplorably  true  when  utilitarians 
are  not  to  blame  for  it.  But  it  is  only  an  accident  of  the  contro- 
versy, not  any  essential  part  of  it.  The  scientific  question,  which 
can  be  conducted  with  the  utmost  calm  and  freedom  from  preju- 
dice one  way  or  the  other,  is  simply  whether  it  is  a  fact  that 
pleasure  or  happiness  is  the  only  ultimate  end  of  human  action. 


370  element:;  of  ETHiCS 

The  i^ractical  Value  of  taking  it  into  account  will  always  remain, 
no  matter  what  decision  we  come  to  about  the  above  question. 
Science  wishes  to  know  exactly  what  is  true  in  the  case,  and 
after  this  is  determined  it  may  give  its  attention  to  the  various 
practical  interests  and  sympathies  involved  or  aflfiliated  with  the 
general  question.  Careful  analysis  may  show  truth  on  both 
sides,  and  for  that  reason  we  ask  dispassionate  attention  to  the 
arguments  against  the  doctrine,  not  necessarily  with  a  view  to  an 
ignominious  overthrow  of  it,  but  with  the  object  of  showing  just 
what  is  tenable  and  what  is  not  tenable  in  the  theory.  The 
main  purpose  or  sequel  of  our  criticism,  therefore,  Avill  be  analysis. 

The  scientific  question,  besides  the  general  analysis  which  it 
demands,  also  asks  for  a  careful  discrimination  between  several 
distinct  problems  in  the  case,  which  are  too  often  confused  with 
each  other.  These  can  be  expressed  in  the  following  manner : 
(a)  Do  men  as  a  fact  always  seek  pleasure  or  happiness  and 
avoid  pain  as  the  sole  object  of  volition?  (6)  Granting  that 
pleasure  is  the  universal  object  of  pursuit,  does  this  fact  prove 
that  it  is  an  object  of  obligation  or  that  it  ought  to  be  sought  ? 
(c)  Assuming  that  hajipiness  is  the  object  which  ougJtt  to  be  de- 
sired, can  any  such  a  criterion  of  right  be  applied  in  practice  ? 
{d)  Assuming,  finally,  that  it  can  be  applied  in  practice,  does  the 
conception  yield  any  such  a  code  of  morality  as  civilized  man 
has  actually  adopted  ? 

All  that  requires  to  be  said  of  these  propositions  is,  that  if  the 
first  be  affirmed,  additional  proof  is  required  for  the  second. 
Every  theory  of  ethics  mu.«t  determine  the  ideal,  what  ought  to 
be,  not  merely  the  real  or  what  Is.  If  men  universally  seek 
happiness  only,  and  if  happiness  be  the  ideal  end  of  action,  then 
there  is  no  use  in  laying  down  an  obligation  to  pursue  it,  because 
a  duty  implies  either  the  possibility  or  an  inclination  not  to  seek 
a  given  end.  If  men  actually  seek  it,  there  is  nothing  for  ethics 
to  do.  On  tlic  otlier  liand,  to  deny  the  first  question  is  to  cut  up 
tlic  utilitarian  theory  l)v  tlie  roots.  For  if  pleasure  is  not  the 
only  end  pursucil  by  man,  it  is  not  the  only  ideal,  and  may  be 
purely  subordinate  to  something  else.      The  coexistence  of  any 


THE  THEORIES  ASD  NATURE  OF  JIORALITY      371 

other  object  of  volition  than  liapiDiness,  actually  pursued,  must 
nullify  utilitarianism,  because  it  h  conditioned  upon  the  ideality 
of  pleasure  alone,  whether  actur,Ily  sought  or  not.  The  second 
proposition  also  shows  that  much  more  has  to  be  done  than  to 
show  that  men  universally  seek  happiness.  They  may  do  this 
and  yet  may  not  seek  the  mornlly  ideal.  The  utilitarian  must 
prove  the  morally  ideal  nature  of  h.appiness  and  not  merely  the 
universality  of  man's  pursuit  of  it.  The  third  question  brings 
up  a  problem  that  we  have  to  consider,  and  it  is  whether  pleasure 
is  a  practical  criterion  of  virtue,  even  if  we  assume  that  it  is  an 
ultimate  good,  or  a  necessary  element  of  it.  The  conception 
may  be  so  abstract  as  to  prevent  it  from  having  any  direct  appli- 
cation to  concrete  and  individual  cases.  The  last  question 
implies  that  even  if  the  previous  assumptions  are  proved  in  the 
second  and  third  questions  it  is  still  open  to  consider  whether 
they  coincide  with  the  actually  existing  code  of  morality.  The 
question  is  not  whether  happiness  i:  ideal  and  practical  as  a  cri- 
terion of  virtue,  but  whether  it  is  the  sole  element  of  the  code 
which  we  recognize  as  moral.  All  these  various  points  of  view 
show  that  there  is  a  very  complex  problem  before  us,  and  not  to 
be  solved  merely  by  pointing  to  universal  practice. 

There  is  another  difficulty  which  the  critic  of  utilitarianism 
has  to  meet,  and  it  may  as  well  be  frankly  acknowledged.  It 
must  not  be  shirked  by  any  one.  Opponents  of  the  theory  have 
always  admitted  that  happiness  is  a  necessary  accompaniment  of 
virtue.  While  they  have  spoken  very  firmly  about  the  duty  to 
disregard  consequences,  they  have  readily  enough  granted  that 
the  reward  of  virtue  included  a  happiness  much  higher  and  bet- 
ter than  the  reward  of  vice,  and  even  when  proclaiming  that 
virtue  is  its  own  reward  they  would  not  deny  that  it  is  necessa- 
rily, or  at  least  in  a  perfect  world,  accompanied  by  pleasure. 
Now,  if  happiness  always  be  a  concomitant  of  virtue,  if  it  always 
be  the  natural  consequence  of  morality,  it  is  impossible  to  give 
any  objective  disproof  of  utilitarianism.  As  long  as  pleasure  in- 
variably accompanies  any  other  fact  we  cannot  prove  that  it  is 
not  the  object  of  volition.     It  might  not  be  the  real  object  of 


372  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

desire  and  choice,  but  its  presence  with  that  object  would  leave 
nothing  but  the  testimony  of  the  individual  consciousness  to 
prove  what  the  true  object  was.  In  the  majority  of  cases  this 
testimony  would  undoubtedly  favor  pleasure,  while  those  who 
denied  it  would  be  open  to  the  suspicion  either  of  illusion,  of 
ignorance,  or  of  obstinacy  in  favor  of  a  pet  theory.  The  only 
absolute  proof  of  moralism  as  opposed  to  utilitarianism  would  be 
the  existence  of  an  ideal  condition,  or  the  ultimate  issue  of  duty, 
without  any  accompaniment  of  pleasure.  This  being  the  case, 
and  all  persons  acknowledging  that  hapjiiness  is  the  natural  con- 
sequence of  duty,  the  only  arguments  against  utilitarian  hedonism 
are  those  which  are  more  or  less  indirect  and  which  appeal  to 
the  individual  moral  sense  for  evidence  as  to  what  the  real  moral 
ideal  is,  and  as  to  what  satisfies  reason  and  conscience  in  the 
matter  of  the  highest  .good.  With  this  understanding  of  the 
problem,  and  of  the  fact  that  the  main  object  of  the  criticism 
mu.st  be  analysis,  we  may  proceed  to  give  the  arguments  against 
utilitarianism. 

1.  The  Indefinite  and  Abstkact  Nature  of  Pleasure 
AS  A  Conception. — One  of  the  main  difficulties  with  pleasure 
as  an  object  of  volition  is  that  the  term  has  become  so  general 
and  abstract  as  to  describe  the  consequences  of  actions  witlu)ut 
regard  to  their  moral  quality.  No  one  is  ever  certain  wliat 
pleasure  we  mean  when  we  undertake  to  measure  conduct  by  it. 
The  term  applies  equally  to  the  consequences  of  vice  and  virtue 
in  uuuiy  cases.  Intemperance  as  well  as  temi)erance  may  have 
its  pleasures,  and  perhaps  it  is  only  an  a  j^riori  opinion  that  })ain 
must  inevitably  result  from  an  act  of  intemperance.  But,  hoAV- 
ever  this  may  be,  pleasure  is  so  iii(k(inite  in  its  meaning,  even 
when  supposing  that  it  is  always  the  same  in  kind,  that  as  a  cri- 
terion of  right  we  cannot  distinguish  between  the  merits  of  eat- 
ing and  the  merits  of  patriotism,  or  the  merit  of  taking  a  holiday 
and  of  saving  sr)me  one  from  drowning.  "We  distinguisli  between 
tlie  worth  of  nobk;  statesiiKUislii|)  and  the  enjoyments  Tjf  a  picnic, 
but  the  mere  won]  pleasure  will  not  enabl'e  us  to  detcriniiie  that  dis- 
tinction.    It  describes  the  same  phenomenon  in  both  cases.     The 


pleasure  qua  pleiisure  is  the  same  in  each  of  them,  and  we  have  to 
specify  some  added  quality  or  qualification  of  pleasure  in  order 
to  explain  our  preference  of  one  over  the  other  of  these  acts. 
The  -term  is  j)urely  an  abstract  one.  It  describes  a  feeling  or  set 
of  feelings  without  reg'ard  to  the  incidents,  causes,  or  objects  con- 
nected with  it,  while  morality  cannot  lose  sight  of  the  concrete 
conditions  connected  with  happiness.  If  pleasure  is  to  be  taken 
into  account  at  all,  it  must  be  in  connection  with  the  particular 
act  or  object  which  causes  ito  It  is  not  any  and  every  pleasure, 
so  to  speak,  but  the  j^leasure  of  certain  actions  that  we  must  take 
into  account.  For  instance,  it  is  not  the  pleasures  of  malice  that 
I  can  indulge  with  moral  impunity  or  approval,  hut  only  the 
pleasures  of  respecting  human  life  and  rights.  Hence  the  moral 
ideal  requires  to  reckon  with  more  than  pleasure  in  the  abstract. 
We  have  to  include  the  incidents  or  objects  of  it  as  part  and  par- 
cel of  the  criterion  demanded.  They  may  express  some  added 
quality  other  than  pleasure,  or  such  a  qualification  of  it  as  pre- 
vents the  term  from  having  any  practical  application  to  life  as 
we  know  it.  Xor  is  it  any  defense  to  say  that  the  utilitarian 
theory  is  not  based  uj^on  pleasure  in  the  abstract,  but  that  it 
means  pleasure  of  a  certain  purity,  fertility,  durability,  and  propin- 
quity, because  this  only  makes  the  matter  more  dubious  and  in- 
definite. These  qualities  of  pleasure  are  not  definable  at  all, 
No  one  can  say  when  a  pleasure  will  be  pure  or  fertile  or  dur- 
able. While  this  may  save  the  theoretical  consistency  of  the 
doctrine,  it  only  renders  it  all  the  more  impracticable  by  adding 
greater  indefiniteness  to  the  idea  upon  which  it  is  based,  and 
hence  does  not  furnish  a  specific  conception  for  making  the  doc- 
trine intelligible  and  satisfying  the  demands  of  morality.  Pleas- 
ure is  at  most  the  name  only  for  the  end  or  consequence  of  con- 
duct, not  for  the  means  to  it,  and  morality  cannot  lose  sight  of 
the  means.  In  taking  account  of  the  means  to  an  end,  morality 
keeps  its  attention  upon  the  idea  of  law,  moral  law,  or  a  uniform 
mode  of  action  without  regard  to  immediate  consequences  when 
more  important  remoter  consequences  are  at  stake.  Pleasure 
without  qualification  will  not  distinguish  between  them,  being  so 


374  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

indefinite  and  abstract  as  to  connote  the  consequences  of  any  act 
■whatever.  The  moral  ideal,  therefore,  cannot  be  expressed  by 
that  term  without  qualification.  The  utmost  that  can  be  main- 
tained is  that  the  highest  good  must  at  least  contain  happiness 
whatever  else  is  necessary  to  meet  the  claims  of  morality.  This 
may  be  true,  but  it  wholly  nullifies  utilitariauism,  Avhich  must 
stand  upon  pleasure  alone  and  without  qualification  other  than 
purity,  fertility,  durability,  etc.,  which  only  conceals  the  aban- 
donment of  the  one  thing  necessary  to  make  morality  intelligible ; 
namely,  a  specific  conception  equal  to  the  quality  expressed  by 
it.  In  brief,  pleasure  or  happiness  is  so  indefinite  and  abstract  a 
conception  as  to  supply  no  practical  criterion  of  virtue,  and 
hence  requires  to  be  supplemented  by  some  other  element  in 
order  to  make  the  highest  good  intelligible  and  practical. 

2.  The  Incommensurability  of  Pleasures  and  Pains. — 
As  we  have  seen,  utilitarianism  asserts  that  pleasures  differ  only 
in  degree  or  quantity  and  that  they  are  commeusurable.  On  the 
contraiy,  it  may  be  maintained  that,  even  if  they  difler  only  in 
degree  of  intensity  and  purity,  they  are  not  commensurable  in 
any  sense  that  would  make  happiness  a  criterion  of  right  and 
wrong.  How  is  it  possible  to  measure  the  pleasure  which  one 
•man  takes  in  eating  with  the  pleasure  another  takes  in  upholding 
the  laws  ?  Which  will  be  the  more  intense  or  the  purer  ?  Ac- 
cording to  the  utilitarian  standard  the  intenser,  purer,  and  more 
fertile  pleasure  is  to  be  chosen  rather  than  that  with  less  of  these 
characteristics.  Well,  it  may  give  one  man  more  i)leasure  to 
steal  than  to  act  honestly,  and  intensity  being  the  criterion  there 
is  nothing  to  be  said  against  it.  The  innn  who  desires  it  is  the 
supreme  judge.  Nor  is  it  any  reply  to  scy  that  the  laws  of 
society  prevent  stealing  from  being  an  intense  or  pure  pleasure, 
because  these  laws  have  no  right  to  existence  until  they  have 
conformed  to  the  principles  which  the  utilitarian  lays  down. 
rica.<nre  being  the  standard,  the  laws  must  not  countermine  it, 
but  must  ccjnform  to  it.  Laws  depend  upon  morality  for  their 
authority  and  legitimacy,  and  do  not  make  it,  and  hence  have 
no  right  to  determine  the  pleasure  which  is  to  be  their  basis. 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       375 

Consequently,  if  pleasure  or  feeling  is  to  be  the  standard  of  ^vhat 
is  right,  it  would  seem  that  every  man  must  be  his  own  judge  of 
it,  because  he  can  be  the  only  judge  of  what  gives  him  pain  or 
pleasure.  The  gratification  of  the  physical  appetites  may  give 
one  man  more  pleasure  than  the  study  of  science  or  art,  and  vice 
versa.  A  may  prefer  vagabondage  to  honest  labor,  and  B  hard 
work  and  wealth  to  a  life  of  leisure  or  idleness.  One  man's 
pleasQre  cannot  be  measured  in  terms  of  another's.  What  gives 
one  pleasure  will  give  another  pain.  Scarcely  any  two  persons 
can  be  made  to  agree  upon  their  choice  on  this  account.  This 
would  indicate  that,  pleasure  being  the  object  of  volition  and 
standard  of  right  and  wrong,  every  man  would  be  a  law  to  him- 
self, and  such  a  thing  as  morality  binding  upon  all  persons  alike 
would  be  impossible.  The  fundamental  characteristic  of  moral- 
ity is  that  it  shall  be  universally  binding  upon  rational  beings, 
but  with  the  incommensurable  nature  of  pleasures,  as  compared 
in  different  persons,  this  condition  is  flatly  impossible.  Nor  is 
the  case  helped  by  saying  that  each  man  can  compare  his  own 
feelings  and  determine  the  purer  and  higher  pleasures,  for  even 
if  this  be  true,  it  is  not  an  objective  mensuration  of  pleasures, 
which  is  the  condition  demanded.  It  leaves  every  individual  a 
law  to  himself,  when  each  man  differs  from  every  othei',  which  is 
the  very  opposite  of  morality.  We  can  determine  the  degree  or 
quantity  of  any  phenomenon  when  it  displays  a  given  uniformity 
with  the  causes  or  objects  which  produce  it,  such  as  the  pressure 
of  steam,  the  pressure  of  the  air,  the  force  of  gravity,  the  force  of 
impact,  the  intensity  of  sensation  to  some  extent,  and  any  other 
result  definitely  related  to  its  antecedents.  But  it  is  not  so  with 
pleasures,  which,  besides  varying  between  individuals,  are  compli- 
cated with  all  sorts  of  subjective  difficulties  if  we  come  to  ask 
each  man  to  tell  their  comparative  amounts.  No  commensura- 
tion  is  possible  which  science  can  respect.  The  utmost  that  we 
can  do  is  to  describe  the  choice  of  one  rather  than  another  as  a 
preference  which  is  quite  as  consistent  with  a  difference  of  kind  as 
a  diflference  of  degree,  and  we  should  not  mistake  that  description 
for  an  implication  of  commensurability.     It  is  all  a  question 


376  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

■whether  there  is  any  measure  for  pleasures  which  can  definitely 
determine  their  rank  in  comparison  with  each  other;  whether 
there  is  any  means  apart  from  individual  caprice  and  taste  for 
deciding  how  jileasures  compare  with  each  other.  Until  there  is 
such,  the  commensurability  of  feeling  is  impossible  and  the  utili- 
tarian standard  goes  by  default  of  ability  to  meet  the  demands 
which  it  makes  itself  upon  ethical  theories. 

3.  The  Fatality  of  Admitting  Qualitative  Differ- 
ences BETWEEN  Pleasures. — Bentham  did  not  admit  that 
pleasures  differed  in  kind.  On  the  contrary,  he  asserted  that 
they  differed  in  degree  only.  But  mankind  have  so  uniformly 
maintained  that  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong:  was 
one  of  kind,  and  n;)t  merely  of  degree,  that  jMill,  Stej)hen,  and 
other  later  utilitarians  have  tried  to  save  the  theory  by  hold- 
ing that  pleasures  differ  in  quality  as  well  as  in  quantity. 
Says  ^Ir.  Stephen,  "  even  an  infant  distinguishes  between  its 
love  for  its  cousin  and  its  love  for  jam  tart."  This  is  a  flat  con- 
tradiction of  Bentham,  who  quite  as  clearly  and  acutely  observes 
that  so  far  as  the  pleasure  is  concerned  there  is  no  difference 
between  pushpin  and  poetry.  But  this  conception  was  so  far 
from  coinciding  with  the  qualitative  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong,  that  ]\Iill  and  Stephen  thought  to  satisfy  the  mind 
by  affirming  qualitative  as  well  as  quantitative  distinctions  be- 
tween ])leusurcs.     jMill's  direct  language  is  as  follows  : 

"  It  is  quite  compatible  with  the  principle  of  utility  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  some  kinds  of  pleasure  are  more  desirable 
and  more  valuable  than  others.  It  would  l)e  al)surd  that  while, 
in  estimating  all  other  things,  quality  is  considered  as  well  as 
quantity,  the  estimation  of  pleasures  should  be  supposed  to  de- 
pend on  quantity  alone. 

"  If  I  am  a.sked  what  I  mean  by  dilierence  of  quality  in  pleas- 
ures, or  wliat  makes  one  pleasure  more  valuable  than  another, 
merely  as  a  pleasure,  except  its  being  greater  in  amount,  there  is 
but  one  possible  answer.  Of  two  i)leasurcs,  if  there  be  one  to 
which  all  or  almost  all  who  have  experience  of  both  give  a  de- 
cided preference,  irrespective  of  any  feeling  of  moral  obligation 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       377 

to  prefer  it,  that  is  the  more  desirable  pleasure.  If  one  of  the 
two  is,  by  those  who  are  competently  acquainted  with  both, 
placed  so  far  above  the  other  that  they  prefer  it,  even  though 
knomng  it  to  be  attended  with  a  greater  amount  of  discontent, 
and  would  not  resign  it  for  any  quantity  of  the  other  pleasure 
which  their  nature  is  capable  of,  we  are  justified  in  ascribing  to 
the  preferred  enjoyment  a  superiority  in  quality,  so  far  out- 
weighing quantity  as  to  render  it,  in  comparison,  of  small  ac- 
count." 

Put  plainly,  this  is  simply  saying  that  the  pleasures  of  appe- 
tite are  diftereut  in  kind  as  well  as  degree  from  the  pleasures  of 
knowledge,  so  that  the  merit  of  pursuing  the  latter  compared 
with  the  former  depends  wholly  upon  the  difference  of  quality 
in  the  pleasures.  Similarly  the  moral  difference  between  malice 
and  respect,  theft  and  honesty,  avarice  and  generosity,  deceit  and 
veracity,  selfishness  and  conscientiousness,  is  the  difference  in 
quality  of  the  pleasures  that  accompany  them.  According  to 
this  it  is  not  the  difference  in  quantity,  but  the  difference  in 
quality  of  pleasure  that  distinguishes  between  the  character  of 
lying  and  the  character  of  truthfulness.  This  seems  a  very 
plausible  solution  of  the  j)i'oblem,  but  it  is  nevertheless  an  entire 
abandonment  of  utilitarianism  and  its  principles.  The  name,  of 
course,  is  retained,  but  the  thing  itself  is  abandoned.  AYe  must 
make  this  clear. 

First,  all  utilitarianism  previous  to  Mill  was  based  upon  the 
notion  that  pleasure  was  the  same  in  kind  and  that  the  forms  of 
it  dlflered  only  in  degree.  The  adoption  of  Mill's  doctrine  of 
qualitative  differences  was  an  abandonment  of  this  position. 
Second,  in  Bentham's  theory  "  pleasure  "  was  a  generic  term 
compreheudiug  qualitatively  every  case  of  its  occurrence,  and 
actions  did  not  differ  in  their  quality,  but  only  in  the  degree  of 
pleasure  and  pain  incident  to  them.  But  in  IMill's  doctrine 
"  pleasure  "  is  not  only  a  generic  term,  but  that  "  pleasure  "  which 
determines  the  right  is  specific  and  denotes  a  quality  which  is 
not  found  in  the  same  term  geuerically  taken.  Now,  this  view  of 
it  is  a  contradiction.     If  "  pleasure  "  can  denote  the  satisfaction 


378  ELEMESTS  OF  ETHICS 

or  agreeable  feelings  that  follow  actions  witliout  distinction  of 
kind,  then  it  is  not  the  pleasure  that  makes  the  distinction.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  that  determines  the  distinc- 
tion between  right  and  wrong,  then  this  term  cannot  apply  to 
the  agi^eable  feelings  that  accompany  wrong  actions.  In  other 
words,  pleasures  cannot  have  differences  of  kind.  Again,  if 
pleasure  denotes  agreeable  feeling  wherever  if  occurs,  and  with- 
out regard  to  distinction  between  moral  and  immoral  conduct, 
then  the  quality  that  determines  that  distinction  is  other  than 
pleasure.  On  the  other  hand,  if  that  quality  is  pleasure,  there  is 
no  difference  in  kind,  and  those  are  not  pleasures  which  accom- 
pany wrong  actions.  We  cannot  play  fast  and  loose  \vith  the 
term  pleasure.  We  cannot  give  it  a  generic  and  a  specific  use 
at  the  same  time.  We  only  succeed  in  duping  ourselves  and 
others  into  the  bargain.  No  theory  can  stand  upon  an  equivoca- 
tion, and  this  is  precisely  what  utilitarianism  attempts  to  do  when 
it  talks  about  the  "  kinds  of  pleasure."  As  a  loose  and  popular 
phrase  it  may  be  well  enough.  But  it  can  only  serve  as  an  inac- 
curate substitute  for  a  desired  term  which  shall  express  pleasure 
plus  a  quality  other  than  pleasure,  if  pleasure  is  to  express  the 
whole  class  of  species  included  under  its  usual  application.  The 
true  meaning  of  the  term  is  generic  in  which  it  expresses  the 
common  qualities  of  a  class  whose  differentiae  are  other  than  the 
genus  (conferentia).  This  is  j^uttiug  the  case  technically,  but 
the  same  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that  pleasure  expresses 
what  is  similar  in  all  the  cases  in  which  it  occurs,  while  the  so- 
called  differences  in  kind  exjjrcss  something  other  than  the  jileas- 
urc  in  order  to  determine  the  qualitative  distinctions  of  the 
s])ecics.  Mr.  iMartincau  expresses  this  conception  of  the  case 
very  clearly  and  pertinently.  Ilis  language  is  worth  quoting. 
"  If  there  are  sorts  of  pleasure,"  he  says,  "  they  must  be  some- 
thing more  than  pleasure;  each  must  have  its  f^'^<?rc«<m  added 
on  to  what  sufilces  for  the  genus;  and  tliis  addition  cannot  be 
pleasurable  quality,  else  it  would  nut  detach  anything  from  the 
genus;  to  mark  a  species  at  all,  it  must  be  an  extra- hedonistic 
quality,  and  each  sort  must  have  its  own;  and  so  far  as  one  is 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      370 

preferable,  as  a  kind,  to  another,  it  is  so  in  virtue  of  what  has 
other  than  pleasure;  and  the  comparison  of  them  all  inter  se, 
considered  as  different  kinds,  must  turn  upon  their  several  extra- 
hedonistic  qualities.  All  that  they  have  from  the  genus  is 
quantitative ;  and  till  you  get  beyond  the  pleasurable  as  such, 
quality  does  not  exist." 

4.  The  Qualitative  Nature  of  Moral  Distinctions. — 
We  have  seen  that  qualitative  distinctions  between  pleasures 
cannot  be  admitted  without  giving  up  utilitarianism,  and  it  re- 
mains to  be  seen  whether  moral  distinctions  can  be  determined 
merely  by  quantitative  differences  betw'een  pleasures  and  thus 
save  utilitarian  doctrine.  If  pleasure  be  the  same  in  kind,  as  it 
must  in  order  to  describe  agreeable  feeling  wherever  experi- 
enced, the  only  differences  w^hich  can  give  rise  to  moral  distinc- 
tions, the  difference  between  virtue  and  vice,  must  be  those  of 
degree ;  namely,  of  purity,  of  intensity,  of  fecundity,  of  dura- 
bility, and  of  propinquity.  But  it  was  precisely  the  conviction, 
so  strongly  intrenched  in  the  consciousness  of  mankind,  that 
morality  represented  a  qualitative  distinction  from  immorality, 
which  induced  ]\Iill  and  others  to  proclaim  a  difference  in  kind 
in  pleasures,  in  order  to  meet  the  demands  of  an  overwhelming 
belief  We  think  this  belief  is  correct  and  ineradicable.  It 
may  not  be  easy  to  prove,  but  it  has  in  its  support  such  a  degree 
of  unanimity  as  must  make  any  one  pause  who  wishes  to  deny  it. 
^Moreover,  since  pleasure  and  pain  differ  in  degree  and  not  in 
kind,  and  since  the  distinction  between  morality  and  immoral- 
ity does  not  coincide  absolutely  with  this  difierence,  as  it  ought 
to  do  in  a  consistent  theory  making  pleasure  the  criterion  of 
right  and  pain  of  wrong,  the  impossibility  of  making  different 
quantities  of  pleasure  determine  that  which  ought  to  be  deter- 
mined by  pain  should  be  quite  apparent  to  every  one.  The 
distinction  between  pleasure  and  pain  must  be  quite  as  qualita- 
tive as  that  between  the  moral  and  the  immoral,  and  if  so,  it  is 
impossible  to  make  pleasure  and  pain  their  criteria,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  reduce  the  distinction  to  differences  of  quantity  in 
pleasure.     Nor  will  it  avail  to  fall  back  upon  the  mixed  and 


380  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

impure  character  of  the  pleasures  in  some  cases,  because  there 
are  instances  in  wliicb  both  acts,  as  the  gratification  of  appetite 
and  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  may  give  pure  pleasures,  and  yet 
a  qualitative  difference  of  jnerit  may  existo  Hence  there  is  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  maintain  the  utter  incomj^atibility  between  the 
qualitative  distinctions  of  morality  and  the  purely  quantitative 
differences  of  feeling  upon  which  utilitarianism  relies  to  establish 
them.  This  conclusion  does  not  exclude  the  presence  of  jDleas- 
ure  as  an  element  of  the  ideal,  but  it  docs  exclude  that  datum 
from  being  the  only  and  most  important  constituent  of  it.  That 
is  all  that  it  is  necessary  to  establish  in  order  to  show  the  de- 
ficiency of  utilitarian  hedonism  as  an  ethical  theory. 

5.  TuE  'Subordination  of  Pleasure  and  Pain  to 
OTHER  Ends  than  Themselves. — We  referred  to  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's doctrine  of  pleasure  and  pain  in  the  economy  of  evolution 
as  a  fact  in  favor  of  utilitarianism,  though  we  were  careful  to 
indicate  that  it  was  rather  in  favor  of  taking  them  into  account 
than  of  making  them  ultimate  ends.  JNIr.  Spencer,  however, 
intends  his  doctrine,  that  pleasure  increases  life  and  pain  de- 
creases it,  to  support  utilitarianism.  This  is  an  illusion  on  his 
part.  For  he  wholly  forgets  that  utilitarianism  is  conditioned 
wholly  by  the  conception  that  pleasure  is  the  end,  the  highest 
end  of  conduct,  and  not  merely  a  means  to  ati  end.  But  in 
showing  that  pleasure  as  a  phenomenon  of  consciousness  in- 
creases life,  or  develops  and  perfects  the  organism,  physical  or 
psychical,  and  that  jiain  decreases  it,  he  abandons  the  notion 
that  pleasure  is  the  end,  and  set?  up  life,  the  organism,  or  per- 
fection as  the  end,  while  pleasure  is  a  mere  means  to  it.  Pleas- 
ure becomes  a  purely  subordinate  event  in  the  economy  of 
nature ;  it  may  be  an  important  one  and  to  be  taken  into 
account  as  an  index  to  the  right  goal,  but  it  is  in  that  concep- 
tion no  j)art  of  the  goal  or  end  to  be  sought.  It  happens  to  be 
a  natuial  pliciiomenon  which  only  points  tbe  way  to  an  end 
not  itself,  and  which  serves  to  direct  the  subject  when  his  reason 
may  not  have  informed  biin  of  flic  liirlit.  However  this  may  be, 
we  cannot  consider  pleasure  and  pain  as  instruments  to  an  effect 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       381 

without  giving  up  the  notion  that  they  are  the  ultimate  objects 
of  volition.  The  truth  of  ]\[r.  Spencer's  position  is  purchased  at 
the  expense  of  utilitarianism.  Pleasure  cannot  be  both  the 
ultimate  end  of  conduct  and  a  means  to  some  other  result  than 
itself.     It  can  be  only  one  or  the  other. 

6.  General  Defects. — There  are  several  difficulties  in  the 
utilitarian  theory  which  are  either  corollaries  and  incidents  of 
those  alread}'  mentioned,  or  are  less  important  and  too  general  to 
be  classified  separately  and  may  as  well  be  comprehended  as 
general  defects.  In  the  first  place,  while  the  appeal  to  pleasure 
or  happiness  has  considerable  practical  efficiency  when  duty  and 
interest  coincide,  it  gives  rise  to  much  casuistry  and  tampering 
with  conscience  whenever  we  are  made  to  feel  that  its  pursuit 
is  harmless  under  all  circumstances.  Nothing  so  weakens  the 
monitions  of  conscience  as  the  belief  that  concessions  may  or 
must  always  be  made  to  pleasure  in  choosing  our  course  of  con- 
duct. It  is  equivalent  to  offering  us  two  guides  who  do  not 
always  go  the  same  way.  Then  again,  this  practical  efficiency  of 
utilitarianism  can  be  very  much  exaggerated.  It  has  the  effect 
of  concentrating  attention  upon  the  feelings  to  be  satisfied 
rather  than  upon  the  way  they  are  to  be  satisfied ;  namely, 
upon  the  functions  of  reason  and  delil)eration  and  the  conditions 
of  the  highest  good.  When  pressed,  the  theory  recognizes  these 
elements,  but  they  do  not  appear  upon  the  surface.  Consequently 
it  has  very  little  place  for  what  is  known  as  moral  insight  and 
duty,  unless  they  coincide  with  happiness,  while  moralism 
emphasizes  these  and  leaves  happiness  to  be  attained  without 
aiming  at  it  as  the  only  end  to  be  achieved. 

Still  another  objection  is  that  utilitarianism  diverts  attention 
from  the  conditions  of  happiness  to  the  feelings,  which  avails  to 
create  the  tendency  to  seek  pleasure  by  whatever  means  it  may 
be  attained  and  so  to  encourage  short-sightedness.  This  is 
apparent  from  an  illustration  which  will  test  the  theory  of 
utilitarianism  to  the  uttermost.  It  is  quite  evident  that  the 
appeal  to  the  individual's  happiness  is  a  strong  one.  But  this  is 
in  constant  danger  of  degenerating  into  egoism,  which  no  utilita- 


382  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

rian  will  admit.  Even  Bentham,  in  spite  of  Lis  strong  individu- 
alistic tendency,  insisted  that  the  happiness  which  should  be  the 
measure  of  right  must  be  of  the  greatest  number,  and  all  later 
utilitarianism  has  been  emphatically  altruistic  in  its  jDrinciples. 
Besides  having  less  practical  efficiency  than  the  egoistic  form,  so 
far  as  obtaining  obedience  is  concerned,  unless  the  altruistic 
instincts  predominate,  this  form  of  the  doctrine  can  only  mean 
that  we  should  aim  at  the  happiness  of  others  as  well  as  our 
own.  This  sounds  very  well  and  falls  into  line  with  our  social 
and  sympatlietic  instincts.  But  both  its  theoretical  and  practical 
defects  are  clearly  seen  in  modern  sentimental  charity.  The  sole 
aim  of  much  modern,  as  nearly  all  earlier,  charity,  was  to  make 
the  beneficiary  happy,  and  it  succeeds.  But  it  does  not  moralize 
the  recipient,  as  all  scientific  students  of  the  problem  have  to 
confess.  If  happiness,  however,  be  the  standard  of  right,  there  is 
no  disputing  the  morality  of  indiscriminate  charity;  for  the 
donor  is  altruistic  and  the  recipient  is  made  happy.  Indeed,  it 
will  not  do  to  say  that  remoter  pain  and  evil  follow  such  con- 
duct, because  the  vagabond  never  is  so  happy  as  when  he  gets  all 
he  wants  without  labor,  and  never  so  unhappy  as  when  he  must 
work.  The  giver  of  alms  is  fulfilling  all  the  conditions  of  utili- 
tarianism Avhen  he  aims  at  others'  happiness,  and  he  attains  his 
own,  whether  selfishly  sought  or  not,  when  he  docs  an  act  of 
charity.  But  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  all  students  of  this 
problem,  and  among  them  utilitarians  themselves,  have  to 
condemn  actions  of  this  kind,  and  not  merely  because  pain  some- 
where and  sometime  follows  froju  foolish  licnevolence,  but  because 
such  a  course  violates  the  conditions  of  perfect  life.  No  better 
illustration  could  be  chosen  to  show  that  unsclfisli  happiness  is 
the  end  of  the  agent,  and  yet  has  to  be  condcnmed  as  an  unmiti- 
gated evil.  The  fact  is  that  true  charity  nui.st  aim,  not  at  tlic 
hai)pincss  of  the  joerson  to  whom  benevolence  is  giantod,  but  at 
the  establishment  of  conditions  under  which  ha])pim'ss  can  be 
won  and  earned  by  the  beneficiary  himself,  and  iC  lie  will  not 
live  up  to  those  C(»nditions  tlie  pain  which  follows,  so  far  from 
being  an  evil,  is  a  good.     However  this  may  be,  it  is  not  happi- 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      383 

ness  which  wc  should  aim  at,  but  a  certain  order  whicli  is  the 
condition  of  it  to  those  whose  conduct  deserves  it,  and  the  moral 
judgment  in  regard  to  charity  is  the  best  illustration  of  this 
doctrine. 

Utilitarians  have  often  shown  an  unconscious  tendency  to 
accept  this  point  of  view  and  to  abandon  their  principles  by  a 
doctrine  which  they  avow  without  the  slightest  trace  of  their 
knowing  what  it  means.  This  is  another  of  their  defective 
claims.  For  instance,  INIill,  Spencer,  and  Sidgwick  agree  in 
affirming  that  although  happiness  is  the  ultimate  end  of  conduct, 
we  should  not  directly  aim  at  it.  They  hold  that  it  can  best  be 
attained  in  an  indirect  manner.  In  this  view  virtue  consists, 
not  in  directly  aiming  at  happiness,  but  in  aiming  at  certain 
forms  of  conduct  and  conditions  which  naturally  result  in  happi- 
ness. This  Mr.  Sidgwick  calls  the  paradox  of  hedonism,  and 
]Mr.  Spencer  defends  it  with  much  care  and  earnestness.  But  it 
ought  to  be  apparent  to  every  one  that  it  is  a  very  queer  ideal 
or  end  at  which  men  should  not  aim,  and  yet  which  is  the  con- 
dition of  virtue.  All  morality  supposes  that  men  should  aim  at 
the  highest  good  ;  the  moral  ideal  exists  to  be  sought,  to  be  the 
object  of  all  our  aims,  and  hence  it  is  certainly  very  curious  to 
tell  us  that  happiness  is  the  highest  good,  and  yet  should  not  be 
the  immediate  object  of  volition.  A  good  which  should  not  be 
aimed  at,  but  which  is  to  be  attained  by  turning  away  from  it,  is 
certainly  an  anomaly  in  speculation,  and  it  is  certainh'  a  very 
humorous  j)iece  of  unconscious  irony  to  call  such  a  doctrine  a 
paradox ;  for  it  is  a  great  deal  more  than  a  paradox.  It  is  an 
absurdity.  The  highest  good  is  to  be  directly  sought  or  it  is 
not  the  highest  good  at  all.  The  trouble  with  the  utilitarians 
at  this  point  is  that  they  are  reluctant  to  abandon  the  considera- 
tion of  happiness,  and  yet  they  see  that  true  moral  purpose  aims 
at  something  else  than  happiness,  though  it  does  not  sacrifice  it 
in  the  last  analysis.  In  asserting  this  "j^aradox"  the  utilitarian 
is  becoming  aware  of  the  fact  that  morality  has  to  do  with  a  cer- 
tain order  of  tlie  Avorld  which  is  accompanied  by  happiness,  but 
is  more  than  happiness  at  the  same  time ;  but  he  has  not  seen  his 


384  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

way  clear  to  abaiidouing  the  traditional  formula  of  his  theory. . 
He  is  too  anxious  to  hug  the  associations  of  pleasure  while  recog- 
nizing the  value  of  aiming  at  something  else.  Indirection  in 
morality  is  worse  than  an  anomaly.  It  is  an  abandonment  of 
the  very  principle  which  ethics  endeavors  to  establish  ;  namely, 
the  constant  and  earnest  pursuit  of  the  ideal  which  is  to  be  held 
directly  before  the  eye  of  conscience  and  pursued  on  its  own 
account,  not  as  an  end  to  be  gained  by  stealth  and  circumambu- 
lation.  A  target  which  is  to  be  hit  by  not  aiming  at  it  is  either 
not  a  target  at  all  or  it  is  a  bad  reflection  upon  the  character 
and  condition  of  the  marksman.  And  yet  utilitarians  can  be 
found  who  do  not  detect  the  illusion  in  this  conception  of  their 
case.  In  spite  of  it,  however,  their  2:)osition  is  a  tribute  to  their 
natural  moral  insight  which  is  in  most  cases  better  than  their 
theory,  and  which  in  this  instance  points  to  a  standard  of 
morality  quite  diflerent  from  that  of  pleasure. 

It  is  at  this  jioint  that  another  distinct  weakness  of  the  theory 
appears.  "When  Ave  ask  a  man  who  is  conscientious,  who  is  gov- 
erned wholly  by  his  sense  of  duty,  what  his  motive  is,  he  will 
be  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  avow  a  love  of  pleasure  as  his 
passion.  He  will  name  anything  except  pleasure.  No  doubt 
the  consciousness  of  many,  if  not  the  majority  of  mankind,  would 
testify  that  the  motives  of  their  conduct  were  for  happiness,  but 
tills  would  be  when  they  were  not  concerned  about  the  moral  or 
immoral  nature  of  their  conduct,  or  Avhen  they  did  not  feel  the 
pressure  of  conscience.  Persons  without  any  sjiecific  moral 
purpose  would  invariably  avow  this.  But  the  moment  we  come 
to  a  strictly  conscientious  mind  we  should  find  pleasure  or  hap- 
piness retreating  into  the  background,  and  the  sense  of  duty, 
which  however  much  it  may  be  accompanied  by  self-satisfaction 
in  the  form  of  hai)pincss,  points  sternly  to  an  end  that  keeps 
pleasure  out  of  sight.  Hence  the  consciousness  of  the  normal 
person  who  is  striving  to  attain  morality  betrays  no  traces  of  a 
direct  influence  from  ha])piness  alone,  but  shows  an  ideal  order 
of  things  which,  however  much  it  results  in  pleasure,  docs  not 
have  tliat  factor  as  the  only  element  of  its  constitution. 


THE  THEORIES  AND  XATURE  OF  MORALITY       385 

V.  EXAMIXATION  OF  MORAL  IS M.—Tho  very  common 
feeling  that  utility  and  morality  are  not  convertible  terms  re- 
quires that  we  try  some  other  conception  than  hedonism  for  an 
ethical  theory,  and  the  term  "  ]Moralism  "  supplies  this  want,  as 
expressing  a  unique  and  distinct  idea,  embodying  all  that  the 
human  mind  has  eudeavored  to  denote  by  ideas  claiming  a  line- 
age su2")erior  to  mere  pleasure.  "Whether  the  point  of  view  can 
be  justified  is  another  question.  But  there  is  certainly  need  for 
a  descriptive  name  for  that  attitude  of  mind  which  is  not  satis- 
fied with  utilitarianism,  and  the  term  "  Moralism  "  is  the  only 
one  which  will  suit  the  emergency. 

But,  as  we  have  already  seen,  there  are  two  forms  of  the  the- 
ory which  are  in  some  respects  distinct  from  each  other  and 
possess  different  merits  and  demerits.  We  shall,  therefore,  have 
to  treat  the  subject  in  terms  of  these  two  points  of  view.  They 
are  Perfectionism  and  Formalism. 

1st.  Criticism  of  Perfectionism. — The  peculiar  nature  of 
perfectionism  as  a  theory  is  that  it  proposes,  on  the  one  hand, 
an  end  distinct  from  mere  feeling,  and  on  the  other  hand,  an  end 
apart  from  the  mere  feeling  of  duty.  It  shuts  out  utilitarian 
hedDnism  by  proposing  excellence  of  being  as  the  proper  object 
of  moral  volition.  This  excellence  means  the  perfection  of 
every  function  of  man's  nature  which  is  necessary  to  an  orderly 
and  ideal  world,  and  thus  describes  an  objective  end,  while  utili- 
tarianism seems  rational  or  plausible  only  when  the  end  is  sub- 
jective, since  we  found  objective  happiness  as  an  end  to  be  absurd. 
But  perfectionism  proposes  excellence  which  may  be  either  sub- 
jective or  objective  or  both,  and  satisfies  the  mind's  notion  of  an 
ideal  condition  which  is  more  than  happiness  while  including  it 
at  the  same  time.  So  much  for  what  the  theory  is.  The  exam- 
ination of  it  must  follow. 

1.  Difficulties  of  Perfectionism. — It  can  be  charged  that 
the  conception  of  perfection  is  so  indefinite  and  abstract  that  it 
is  no  better  than  pleasure  as  a  standard  of  right  and  wrong. 
This  criticism  is  undoubtedly  true,  to  some  extent  at  least.  It  is 
possible  to  conceive  ourselves  speaking  about  the  perfection  of 


386  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

this  or  that  function  or  tendency  which  on  examination  proves 
to  be  wholly  evil.  Then  as  the  term  does  not  specify  what  per- 
fection, or  the  perfection  of  any  particular  function,  it  seems 
to  comprehend  within  its  range  the  perfection  of  good  and  evil 
instincts  and  qualities  alike.  Apart  from  what  the  term  usually 
means  this  is  an  undoubted  difficulty.  But  the  abstractness  and 
indefiniteness  of  the  term  can  be  very  much  exaggerated.  So 
far  as  its  meaning  is  concerned  it  is  not  so  necessary  to  specify 
particulars  in  the  case,  because  when  used  it  applies  not  to  some 
specific  Junction,  hut  to  all  Junctions  acting  in  harmony.  This 
makes  it  a  very  different  term  from  2>leasure,  which  denotes 
only  one  element  of  being  or  consciousness.  Taken  in.  reference 
to  any  specific  function  of  being,  alone,  it  would  be  quite  as 
objectionable  as  pleasure.  But  its  real  import  is  not  only  an 
ideal  condition  of  being,  whether  of  self,  of  others,  or  of  the 
woidd,  but  also  includes  definitely  the  notion  of  a  harmonious 
adjustment  of  all  functions  in  the  agent  or  order  concerned.  It 
is  only  the  etymological  and  loose  sense  of  the  term  that  gives 
any  trouble ;  the  historical  and  logical  import  of  it,  as  found  in 
those  who  define  and  maintain  the  theory,  is  perfectly  clear,,  and 
tJiat  is  the  realization  of  an  order,  subjective  or  objective,  which 
satisfies  the  sense  of  the  ideal  in  all  the  functions  of  being.  We 
admit  that  the  conception  still  has  its  indefiniteness,  but  it  is 
only  such  as  must  belong  to  all  theories,  which  require  explana- 
tion and  definition  in  detail  in  order  to  develop  their  full  mean- 
ing. Nor,  in  presenting  perfection  as  a  superior  standard  to 
pleasure,  do  we  mean  to  exclude  pleasure  from  a  place  in  the 
comi)lcx  object  of  volition.  It  is  jiossible  to  maintain  that 
pleasure  has  crilerial  (ratio  cognoscendi)  and  perfection  teleologi- 
cal  (ratio  agendi)  meaning  in  the  complex  matter  of  conduct, 
and  that  the  two  are  complementary  functions  of  the  same  ideal. 
This  would  save  unnecessary  antagonism  between  the  two  theo- 
ries, and  at  the  same  time  do  justice  to  the  common  feeling  that 
a  state  or  quality  of  l)elng  is  a  better  representative  of  the  ideal 
than  feeling,  while  not  excluding  it. 

2.  Merits  of  Perfectionism. — Whatever  the  difficulties  of 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       387 

the  idea  of  perfection  as  an  ethical  standard,  it  has  some  impor- 
tant merits  which  commend  it  very  highly  in  comparison  with 
pleasure.  They  may  be  summed  up  in  two  characteristics,  (a) 
Ideality  and  (6)  Objectivity.  Expressed  in  less  technical  terms, 
they  are  purity  of  value  and  a  worth  which  may  be  more 
than  individual  and  personal  interest.  The  importance  of  the 
first  of  these  lies  in  the  fact  that  no  one,  not  even  the  utilitarian, 
can  object  to  perfection  as  an  unworthy  end  to  pursue.  The 
utmost  that  the  utilitarian  can  claim  is  either  that  perfection 
must  be  a  means  to  happiness  or  that  happiness  is  the  standard 
by  which  we  determine  perfection.  But  he  cannot  claim  that 
perfection  is  in  any  case  an  unworthy  object  of  volition  as  can  be 
asserted  against  pleasure  without  qualification.  It  stands  as  an 
unquestioned  ideal,  and  it  only  remains  to  show  that  it  is  ulti- 
mate and  not  a  mere  means  to  some  other  end.  That  it  is  not  a 
mere  means  to  happiness  is  evident  from  IMr.  Spencer's  position 
in  regard  to  pleasure  increasing  life.  In  fact,  the  whole  doctrine 
of  evolution  lays  the  stress  upon  development  of  function,  organ- 
ism, or  perfection  of  structure  and  of  type  rather  than  upon  the 
realization  of  merely  ephemeral  feelings.  It  is  founded  upon 
excellence  of  being  rather  than  any  other  end.  Happiness  is  an 
inevitable  concomitant  of  this  effect,  but  it  is  not  the  end  of  it. 
It  is  one  of  the  incidents'  of  that  condition,  just  as  the  other 
functions  of  consciousness  are,  and  which  would  be  better  in  that 
state  than  without  it,  and  yet  are  not  the  only  elements  of  the 
highest  good.  Again,  however  plausible  it  may  seem  to  say  that 
perfection  exists  for  the  sake  of  happiness,  and  is  thus  subor- 
dinated to  it,  it  is  much  more  clear  that  our  sense  of  ideality 
would  not  be  satisfied  by  happiness  without  j)erfection,  which 
goes  to  show  that  perfection  is  not  merely  a  means  to  pleasure, 
but  a  coexistent  element  of  the  ideal,  which  is  made  up  of  neither 
perfection  nor  happiness  alone,  but  of  both  of  them.  "We  should 
prolxibly  not  care  for  either  of  them  without  the  other.  Certain 
it  is,  however,  that  the  moral  ideal  would  not  be  complete  with- 
out perfection,  which  only  proves  the  insufficiency  of  happiness. 
In  regard  to  the  second  characteristic  little  needs  to  be  said. 


388  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS  . 

Pleasure,  we  found,  could  only  be  a  phenomenon  experienced 
either  by  the  subject  of  the  act,  in  which  case  there  is  the  con- 
stant danger  of  egoism,  or  by  the  pereon  upon  whom  the  act  falls, 
in  which  case  the  moral  ideal  is  incomplete.  But  perfection 
involves  a  condition  of  things  that  is  not  necessarily  limited  to 
persons,  although  only  persons  can  have  an  interest  in  it.  But 
its  extra-personal  character  as  a  part  of  the  ideal  deprives  it  of 
the  exposure  to  egoism  and  satisfies  the  sense  of  the  moral  ideal 
by  an  end  which  is  either  wholly  disinterested  or  involves  the 
development  of  the  individual  so  closely  with  the  solidarity  of 
the  race  that  there  is  a  perpetual  check  upon  the  abuse  of  this 
point  of  view.  Hence  perfectionism  is  free  from  the  most 
important  difficulties  of  hedonism,  while  it  admittedly  presents 
a  moral  ideal  to  be  attained. 

2d.  Criticism  of  Formalism. — Formalism  is  expressed  in 
the  formula  "  duty  fur  duty's  sake,"  "  duty  without  regard  to 
consequences,"  "  obedience  to  law,"  etc.  In  all  these  it  demands 
obedience  to  the  categorical  imperative  as  sufficient  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  morality.  It  seems  to  disregard  every  other 
end  than  conformity' to  the  formal  law  of  duty.  This  law  is  the 
right  direction  of  the  will  and  does  not  require  aiming  at  any  end 
external  to  the  will  itself.  Kant  was  the  most  celebrated  advo- 
cate of  this  theory,  though  it  has  also  been  the  property  of  most 
intuitionalists  and  all  who  make  morality  to  consist  wholly  in  the 
motive  of  conduct.  But  Kant  states  the  case  as  clearly  as  it  can 
be  stated.  The  only  absolute  good  which  he  would  recognize 
was  the  good  will.  "  Nothing  can  possibly  be  conceived,"  he 
says,  "in  the  world  or  out  of  it,  which  can  he  called  good  with- 
out qualification  cxce])t  a  good  will."  AVhat  this  means  is 
apparent  when  he  goes  on  to  show  that  the  will  is  not  good  be- 
cause of  what  it  eflects  outside  of  itself;  that  is,  not  because  of 
any  end  outside  of  itself,  but  because  of  its  conformity  to  the  cat- 
egorical im])erative  or  action  from  the  sense  of  duty.  This  was 
the  reiuson  that  he  wholly  excluded  phiasure  from  the  place  of  a 
moral  good.  Besides  being  a  necessary  object  of  desire  it  was 
held  to  be  an  end  foreign  to  the  will ;  that  is,  not  au  end  which 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      389 

could  be  freely  determined  by  the  subject.  Hence  it  could  not 
be  au  object  of  moral  volition.  But  the  only  thing  which  could 
be  a  motive  to  moral  action  after  asserting  this  limitation  was  the 
naked  moral  law,  "the  idea  of  law  itself,"  or  action  from  the 
sense  of  duty  alone.  IS"o  end  is  to  be  aimed  at  but  this  right 
direction  of  the  will,  and  Kant  expressed  his  abstract  law  of  duty 
in  the  formula  :  "  So  act  that  the  law  of  your  will  can  be  valid 
as  a  universal  law  of  legislation."  This  conception  Avas  modified 
as  the  development  of  the  system  progressed,  but  its  earliest 
enunciation  was  in  this  abstract  form  which,  when  applied,  indi- 
cates no  material  end  to  be  realized  except  self-consistency.  This 
.is  the  reason  that  the  law  is  purely  a  formal  one  and  gives  rise 
to  the  point  of  view  as  we  have  denominated  it. 

1.  Difficulties  OF  Formalism. — The  fundamental  difficulty 
with  which  this  theory  has  to  contend  is  its  one-sidedness.  It 
seems  wholly  to  ignore  every  material  and  practical  end  of  con- 
duct. That  the  moral  law,  -snthout  regard  to  happiness,  perfec- 
tion, or  other  object,  should  be  its  own  end  seems  worse  than  a 
paradox  and  to  propose  an  end  only  in  appearance.  That  we 
should  wholly  disregard  consequences  seems  a  travesty  upon 
moral  law.  The  popular  feeling  about  making  morality  merely 
a  question  of  motives  and  nothing  else  has  been  very  tersely  em- 
bodied in  the  adage  that  "  hell  is  paved  with  good  intentions ;  " 
and  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  hardly  suffices  for  our  notion  of 
morality  that  a  man  should  do  no  more  than  mean  well.  Good 
will  cannot  cancel  a  debt  or  pay  damages  for  an  injury.  It  may 
be  a  condition  of  effecting  such  action  where  civil  law  does  not 
act,  but  merely  good  intentions  will  not  absolve  the  agent  from 
obligations  involving  material  considerations.  Taking  human 
life,  destroying  property,  or  committing  theft  under  cover  of  duty 
does  not  receive  much  favor  from  any  one,  even  from  the  de- 
fender of  formal  morality.  We  long  ago  learned  that  conduct  to 
be  moral  must  have  an  end  in  view,  and  it  does  not  satisfy  us  to 
say  that  good  motives  are  the  only  end  to  be  sought.  They  are 
desirable,  but  they  are  not  the  whole  matter  of  morality.  We 
naturally  expect  some  object  other  than  good  will  to  be  attained 


390  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

at  tlie  same  time.  IMorality  has  an  object  besides  self-consistency 
and  right  feelings.  These  may  be  very  good  qualities,  but  they 
do  not  secure  objective  right  and  justice.  They  evidence  noth- 
ing but  the  goodness  of  the  person  or  agent,  not  the  goodness  of 
his  acts  externally  considered,  which  is  one  of  the  important  ele- 
ments of  morality.  The  ^Yorld  is  constructed  with  a  view  to 
results  as  well  as  motives,  and  hence  a  formal  good  will,  valu- 
able as  it  is,  does  not  supply  the  whole  contents  of  that  of  which 
morality  treats. 

2.  Merits  of  Formalism. — The  fundamental  difficulty  of 
formalism  grows  out  of  the  ambiguous  import  of  the  term 
"  morality,"  which,  as  we  have  shown,  is  sometimes  used  objec- 
tively and  sometimes  subjectively.  If  we  cast  aside  the  objective 
import  of  the  term  ;  that  is,  its  power  to  denote  objective  good, 
like  order,  perfection,  others'  peace  and  happiness,  etc.,  we  shall 
find  a  meaning  which  eludes  the  criticism  that  we  have  just 
made  against  the  formal  conception  of  morality.  If  morality 
means  only  the  personal  and  volitional  side  of  conduct,  then 
Kant  and  the  formalists  are  correct,  and  good  will  constitutes 
the  whole  of  right  action.  The  doctrine  would  then  be  consist- 
ent, whatever  we  thought  of  its  completeness.  But  even  when 
we  concede  that  morality  has  to  do  with  the  objective  as  well 
as  the  subjective,  formalism  has  certain  merits  which  it  is  worth 
our  while  emphasizing. 

The  first  of  these  merits  is  the  personal  side  of  morality.  We 
found  in  the  analysis  of  a  moral  act  that  no  act  could  be 
strictly  called  moral  Avhich  did  not  issue  from  conscious  volition 
and  intention.  The  mere  accomplishment  of  a  desired  result  is 
not  sufficient,  because,  if  it  were,  inanimate  and  physical  move- 
ments might  be  called  moral,  and  so  might  unconscious  (reflex 
and  automatic)  actions  of  the  person  himself  The  same  objec- 
tive good  may  be  realized  by  such  actions  as  by  the  intentional 
volitions  of  the  subject.  But  no  one  for  a  moment  would  re- 
gard such  actions  as  moral.  All  are  agreed  that  to  be  moral  an 
act  must  be  initiated  by  intelligence  and  represent  conscience 
in  some  form.     This  only  shows  how  necessary  motives,  voli- 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY      391 

tioii,  and  good  will  are  to  morality.  It  may  be  true,  as  it  i.«,  that 
morality  is  not  complete  until  some  end  is  attained,  be  it  happi- 
ness, perfection,  or  other  object,  but  it  is  no  less  incomplete  when 
the  good  will  is  absent.  So  incomplete  is  it  without  intelligence 
and  good  will  that  it  would  not  receive  the  name  of  morality  at 
all  unless  they  were  present.  Formalism,  therefore,  expresses  the 
primary  condition  of  morality.  It  embodies  the  whole  contents 
of  virtue  as  distinguished  from  the  good,  and  so  indicates  why  we 
praise  an  act  of  good  will  whatever  the  consequences,  while  we 
do  not  praise  an  act  with  good  consequences-  which  was  not  initi- 
ated by  good  wall.  It  is  the  ])ersonal  element  of  moral  conduct 
that  determines  its  characteristic  worth.  Formalism  calls  atten- 
tion to  that  fact.  It  is  perhaps  unfortunate  and  one-sided  in  ignor- 
ing the  importance  of  consequences,  but  it  is  right  in  maintain- 
ing the  pei-sonal  nature  of  all  moral  action  and  insisting  that  it 
is  the  subjective  side  of  conduct  which  constitutes  virtue  and 
morality  in  the  highest  sense.  Motives  and  volitions  are  purely 
internal  events,  though  they  are  directed  to  the  external.  But 
as  the  causal  connection  between  them  and  external  events  is 
not  invariably  the  same,  and  as  no  man  is  morally  responsible 
for  consequences  which  he  does  not  aim  at  and  Avhich  he  is  not 
conscious  of,  there  is  nothing  left  but  to  judge  the  culpability 
and  inculpability  of  conduct  wholly  from  the  subjective  side, 
though  we  are  justified  in  taking  measures  to  prevent  the  mis- 
carriage of  motives  and  to  regulate  the  adjustment  of  inner  and 
outer  relations.  It  is  personal  agents  or  j^ersonal  actions  that 
we  praise  or  blame,  though  we  may  welcome  or  deplore  the  oc- 
currence of  others  according  as  the  consequences  are  agreeable  or 
disagreeable  to  us.  Praise  and  blame,  however,  are  accorded 
only  to  voluntary  actions,  so  that  the  most  important  sphere  of 
morality  lies  within  the  limits  of  motives  and  the  good  will.  As 
long  as  this  is  the  case  we  shall  find  the  human  mind  emphasizing 
this  side  of  conduct,  especially  because  there  can  be  no  morality 
at  all  without  it,  while  subjective  morality  or  character  can  exist 
Avithout  regard  to  consequences  or  to  the  question  whether  the 
objective  w^orld  is  ideal  or  not. 


392  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

The  second  merit  of  the  theory  is  that  it  establishes  a,  personal 
law  Jor  conduct.  Tiie  attempt  to  make  pleasure  without  qualifi- 
cation the  law  of  volition  will  create  in  the  actions  of  man  all 
the  caprice  which  we  find  in  the  occurrence  of  external  events. 
Now  an  act  would  be  permitted  by  the  jDromise  of  pleasure,  and 
now  the  same  act  would  be  prevented  by  the  prospect  of  pain. 
It  might  be  safe  to  steal  to-day  and  dangerous  to-morrow.  But 
moral  ism  insists  that  the  law  of  a  man's  action  shall  be  found  in 
his  own  will.  The  individual  should  make  duty  his  guiding 
principle  whatever  the  attainable  object  at  the  time.  Hence  the 
notion  of  law,  regularity,  obligation,  which  the  doctrine  main- 
tains represents  a  person  of  stable  character,  one  whose  tenden- 
cies can  be  relied  upon  and  in  whom  confidence  can  be  placed. 
We  can  calculate  just  what  to  expect,  namely,  conscientiousness 
in  all  his  doings,  the  constant  pursuit  of  an  ideal  which  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  world  and  represents  the  uni- 
formity of  nature  in  its  persistency.  We  admire  such  a  being  be- 
cause of  the  intrinsic  worth  of  his  will.  His  judgment  may  be  bad 
in  the  material  application  of  the  moral  law  to  individual  cases, 
but  the  most  important  element  is  present,  namely,  conscience 
and  good  will.  When  a  num  aims  rightly,  when  his  intentions 
are  good,  it  is  an  easier  matter  to  inform  his  intellect  as  to  the 
manner  (jf  his  actions,  than  it  is  to  create  the  good  will  when  the 
judgment  is  clear  and  conscience  seared.  The  education  of  the 
intellect  is  nuich  easier  than  that  of  the  will,  and  is  quite  differ- 
ent in  its  method.  The  greater  })ower  of  the  will  to  resist  the 
right  than  of  the  intellect  to  evade  the  truth  attests  the  greater 
difficulty  of  moralizing  a  num  than  of  educating  him.  But 
when  he  has  once  decided  to  make  the  moral  law  an  object  of 
his  will  and  lives  up  to  it  his  moral  cJun-actcr  is  settled  whatever 
be  tlie  mishaps  of  a  fallible  judgment,  and  he  has  fulfilled  the 
main  requircnient  for  which  morality  exists.  j\Ierit  is  personal, 
and  in  its  liiglicst  development  represents  a  law  of  the  will 
rather  tliaii  a  l;t\v  nf  tilings,  and  moralism  must  have  the  credit 
(jf  niainlaiiiing  tlii'  primary  iinj)ortance  of  this  element  and  the 
])urely  secondary  nature  of  consequences,  though  they  are  not  to 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  jIORALITY       oUo 

be  ignored.  It  is  the  morality  of  character  with  which  ethics 
has  to  do  rather  than  results.  We  want  regularity,  consistency, 
and  nobility  of  purpose  in  the  will  as  the  chief  object  of  moral- 
ity, and  when  that  is  attained  there  will  be  less  difficulty  in 
accomplishing  that  for  which  utilitarianism  stands.  One  of  the 
difficulties  of  concentrating  attention  wholly  upon  the  end  or 
result  of  conduct  is  that  we  are  apt  to  iorget  that  it  can  often  be 
attained  as  easily  by  the  wrong  as  by  the  right  means.  We 
may  not  be  far-sighted  enough  in  applying  the  utilitarian  stand- 
ard, and  hence  if  we  can  show  the  value  of  adopting  a  regular 
form  of  conduct,  as  in  the  long  run  most  free  from  miscarriage, 
we  emphasize  the  importance  of  also  keeping  the  means  in  view 
as  well  as  the  end.  This  is  precisely  what  moralism  effects,  and 
the  fact  establishes  its  right  to  a  supplementary  rank  with  utili- 
tarianism, if  not  to  a  superior  place  in  comparison. 

VI.  CONCLUSION. — The  criticism  of  the  various  theories 
with  their  merits  and  demerits  suggests  the  propriety  of  sum- 
ming up  their  relations  to  each  other  and  perhaps  of  combining 
them.  This  we  think  can  be  done  so  as  to  show^  how  each  posi- 
tion supplies  an  important  element  in  the  complex  result  known 
as  morality.  We  concede  that  pleasure  or  happiness  is  a  good, 
and  it  might  be  even  the  highest  good  taken  in  the  abstract. 
But  it  is  not  a  sufficient  guide  of  itself  in  the  world  constructed 
as  it  is ;  and,  moreover,  it  is  not  the  only  element  of  the  ultimate 
end  of  conduct.  It  is  rather  a  criterion  of  adjustment  than  a 
measure  of  the  whole  good  to  be  ultimately  attained.  But  it  is 
nevertheless  a  datum  which  the  healthy  man  cannot  ignore. 
Utilitarianism  is  thus  justified  in  the  recognition  which  it  gives 
to  happiness.  On  the  other  hand,  perfectionism  is  equally  justi- 
fied in  maintaining  that  perfection  is  an  ultimate  good.  It  is 
one-sided  when  it  Avholly  repudiates  pleasure,  though  right  when 
it  asserts  the  primary  character  of  development  of  function  and 
excellence  of  being  rather  than  merely  phenomenal  feeling. 
The  two  positions,  however,  should  be  united.  As  we  have 
already  indicated,  neither  perfection  nor  happiness,  taken  alone, 
is  the  highest  good.     Both  of  these  combined  represent  the  true 


394  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

state  of  the  case  much  better,  aud  sei've  in  practice  to  correct 
the  aberrations  naturally  incident  to  dependence  upon  either 
of  them.  The  fact  is  that  the  moral  ideal  is  synthetic  or  com- 
plex, made  up  of  elements  which  alone  cannot  satisfy  the  con- 
ception of  morality.  Combined  in  this  way  the  two  theories  get 
all  the  advantages  and  have  none  of  the  defects  which  charac- 
terize them  separately. 

But  there  is  still  another  important  element  in  the  problem. 
Theories  of  ethics  usually  assume  that  the  whole  question  regard- 
ing the  nature  of  conduct  is  determined  solely  by  the  end  or 
consequence  to  be  realized.  This  is  particularly  the  position  of 
utilitarianism,  and  is  probably  quite  as  true  of  perfectionism ; 
namely,  that  the  merit  of  conduct  is  supposed  to  be  determined 
solely  by  the  end,  pleasure,  or  perfection.  This,  however,  is  a 
mistake,  Avhich  is  tacitly  admitted  when  any  concession  is  made 
to  the  value  of  motives.  If  morality  were  purely  a  question  of 
objective  results  this  would  be  true.  The  nature  of  an  act  would 
be  determined  wholly  by  the  consequences  and  without  regard 
to  motive.  But  morality  is  not  wholly  a  matter  of  consequences. 
It  concerns  personality  and  character.  It  exjiresses  personal 
worth  as  well  as  a  condition  of  things  related  to  that  worth. 
We  praise  or  blame  an  act  only  when  it  originates  from  an  intel- 
ligent source.  It  must  be  personal,  free,  and  conscientious  in 
order  to  be  moral,  and  the  act,  so  far  as  it  is  personal,  is  adjudged 
as  moral  and  responsible  only  in  relation  to  the  end  or  conse- 
quence aimed  at,  not  any  consequence  outside  the  intention  of 
the  subject.  Further  than  this,  even  when  the  right  end  is 
sought  the  merit  of  the  act  is  very  nmch  affected  by  the  manner 
of  seeking  it.  If  the  jiursuit  be  instinctive  or  merely  the  nat- 
ural and  spontaneous  prompting  of  the  agent  without  any  con- 
sciousness of  the  value  of  the  end,  or  without  any  reverence  for 
it  as  a  moral  ideal,  however  correct  the  act  may  be  objectively, 
it  ha.s  not  the  moral  merit  of  an  act  which  represents  the  rational 
and  conscientious  volition  of  the  subject.  Tlins,  not  only  the  end 
soiifjjd  is  involrcd,  but  also  the  manner  of  seeking  it  affects  the 
nature  of  moralify.     Wc  have  shown  this  in  the  analysis  of  the 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       395 

conception  of  morality  wliore  it  appeared  tliat  there  were  degrees 
of  merit  involved.  First,  there  is  the  consequence  affecting  the 
act  in  its  objective  relations.  Then  there  is  the  conscious  and 
intentional  pursuit  of  an  end  under  the  variety  of  motives  known 
as  instincts,  desires,  or  natural  promptings  and  without  thought 
of  the  moral  imperativeness  of  it.  This  is  the  second  degree 
of  moral  worth.  Then  the  third  is  action  under  the  moral  im- 
perative or  sense  of  absolute  duty,  which  Kant  made  the 
sole  element  of  morality.  We  regard  it  as  only  one,  but  the 
highest  and  most  important  of  the  three  elements  in  it,  treat- 
ing morality  as  a  complex  and  not  as  a  simple  product.  But 
it  is  the  first  essential  in  it  where  rationality  of  the  highest 
type  is  involved  and  represents  a  manner  of  action,  the  motives 
as  the  only  determinant  of  character,  whatever  effect  the  end  or 
result  may  have  upon  the  matter  objectively  considered.  To 
put  the  case  briefly,  therefore,  utilitarianism  and  perfectionism 
assign  correctly  the  objective  or  teleological  determinant  of 
moralitv,  while  moralism  supplies  the  subjective  element  of  it, 
the  element  of  personal  equation  in  the  case,  which,  considering 
that  morality  has  mostly  to  do  with  personality,  must  always  be 
deemed  the  most  important.  Motives  and  character,  the  law  of 
reason  and  personal  reverence  for  such  a  law,  are  the  starting- 
point  of  moral  action  and  must  receive  a  share  of  the  merit  dis- 
tributed by  the  conception  of  morality,  and  hence  the  manner 
as  well  as  the  matter,  the  form  as  well  as  the  contents  of  the  moral 
law,  enters  into  our  estimate  of  it.  In  this  way  formalism  is  the 
coniplementary  aspect  of  the  other  two  theories,  the  obverse  of 
which  they  are  the  reverse  side  of  conduct.  No  one  theory, 
therefore,  is  complete,  but  taken  aloiie  is  one-sided,  and  requires 
the  others  to  supply  its  deficiencies.  This  is  in  accord  with 
common  sense,  which  judges  of  particular  cases  about  as  described 
and  only  gets  into  diflficulty  when  some  theorist  unjustly  asks  it 
to  explain  its  consistency,  presuming  that  there  should  be  but  a 
single  simple  criterion  of  morality,  when  in  fact  it  is  synthetic  or 
complex. 

A  f>-eneral  agreement  with  the  position  here  taken  is  embodied 


396  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

in  Professor  Dewey's  statement  of  the  case.  He  also  shows  how 
hedonism  and  formalism  supplement  each  other.  "  The  funda- 
mental error  of  hedonism  and  Kantianism,"  he  says,  "is  the 
same — the  supposition  that  desires  are  for  pleasure  only.  Let  it 
be  recognized  that  desires  are  for  objects  conceived  as  satisfying 
or  developing  the  self,  and  that  pleasure  is  incidental  to  this  ful- 
fillment of  the  capacities  of  self,  and  we  have  the  means  of  escap- 
ing the  one-sidedness  of  Kantianism  as  well  as  of  hedonism.  "We 
can  see  that  the  end  is  neither  the  procuring  of  particular  pleasures 
through  the  various  desires,  nor  action  from  the  mere  idea  of  ab- 
stract law  in  general,  but  that  it  is  the  satisfaction  of  desires  ac- 
cording to  Ian'.  The  desire  in  its  particular  character  does  not 
ofive  the  law :  this,  as  we  saw  in  our  criticism  of  hedonism,  is  to 
take  away  all  law  from  conduct  and  to  leave  us  at  the  mercy  of 
our  chance  desires,  as  they  come  and  go.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
law  is  not  something'whoUy  apart  from  the  desires.  This,  as  we 
shall  see,  is  equally  to  deprive  us  of  a  law  capable  of  governing 
conduct.  The  law  is  the  law  of  the  desires  themselves — the  har- 
mony and  adjustment  of  desires  necessary  to  make  them  instru- 
ments in  fulfilling  the  special  destiny  or  business  of  the  agent." 
Apart  from  peculiarities  of  exjiression  this  language  is  that  reason 
and  desire,  rational  law,  and  the  object  of  desire,  hedonism  and 
formalism,  and  we  might  add  perfectionism,  which  is  recognized 
in  the  above  language,  must  be  combined  to  represent  rightly 
the  conception  of  morality  as  a  whole. 

There  is  one  final  fact  of  much  interest  and  importance  in  the 
case.  It  is  that  no  other  view  will  satisfactorily  solve  the  so- 
called  paradox  of  hedonism.  AVe  found  Mill,  Stephen,  Spencer, 
and  Sidgwick  defending  the  strange  doctrine  that  pleasure  is  the 
highest  good  and  yet  cannot  be  attained  by  directly  seeking  it. 
This  position  was  taken  in  deference  to  the  actual  fact  that  the 
direct  suit  of  pleasure,  rather  than  action  according  to  law  or  in 
pursuit  of  jierfection,  often  defeats  its  own  object.  Instead  of 
seeing  in  this  fact  evidence  of  weakness  in  the  theory,  they  de- 
fend an  ethical  contradiction.  But  as  no  one  denies  the  right  to 
j)leasurc  as  a  reward  of  virtue  miuI  a  concomitant  of  perfection — 


THE  THEORIES  AND  NATURE  OF  MORALITY       307 

nay,  rather  all  affirm  that  this  is  the  ideal  order  of  things — we 
may  see  in  the  fact  a  way  to  recognize  in  perfection  and  formal- 
ism combined  an  end  which  can  be  directly  sought  while  attain- 
ing happiness  indirectly  as  a  result.  "What  these  writers,  there- 
fore, asserted  in  regard  to  the  proper  way  to  attain  happiness 
was  correct,  but  it  unconsciously  sacrificed  utilitarianism  and 
confirmed  the  claims  of  opponents  that  the  primary  element  and 
end  of  morality  is  something  else  and  pleasure  a  desirable  in- 
cident of  virtue ;  that  even  if  it  is  sought,  it  must  not  be  the  sole 
end  of  volition,  and  that  it  is  more  properly  a  concomitant  and 
result  of  good  will  and  the  pursuit  of  perfection.  Thus  the  par- 
adox of  hedonism  when  properly  solved  turns  out  to  be  a  proof 
of  other  theories,  while  they  still  accord  it  a  place  in  the  ideal 
of  ethics  as  a  complementary  element  of  it. 

References. — On  the  classification  of  theories  there  are  but  few  references 
to  be  given.  Martineau  :  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  Vol.  I.,  Introduction  ; 
Sidgwick  :  Methods  of  Ethics,  Book  I.,  Chapter  VI. ;  Murray  :  Introduc- 
tion to  Ethics,  Book  II.,  Chapters  I.  and  II. ;  Wundt:  Ethik,  pp.  349-370. 

On  the  discussion  of  theories  and  the  nature  of  morality  authorities  are 
more  numerous.  Martineau:  Types  of  Ethical  Theory,  Vol.  II.,  Book  I. 
and  Book  II.,  Chapters  I.  and  II. ;  Dewey  :  Outlines  of  Ethics  ;  Mackenzie : 
Manual  of  Ethics,  Chapters  VI,  and  VII. ;  Bowne  :  Principles  of  Ethics, 
Chapters  I.,  II.,  and  III. ;  Spencer  :  Principles  of  Ethics,  Vol.  I.,  Part  I. ; 
Social  Statics  (Last  Edition),  pp.  7-62  ;  J.  S.  Mill :  Essay  on  Utilitarian- 
ism ;  Leslie  Stephen  :  Science  of  Ethics,  Chapters  IV.  and  IX. ;  Calder- 
wood  :  Handbook  of  Moral  Philosophy  (Fourteenth  Edition),  Part  I.,  pp. 
30-95 ;  Grote  :  Examination  of  the  Utilitarian  Philosophy  (the  whole 
work  has  a  most  important  bearing  upon  the  problem  of  morality) ;  Green  : 
Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  Book  II.,  Chapter  II.,  Book  III.,  Chapter  I. ; 
Book  IV.,  Chapters  III.  and  IV. ;  Hume:  Treatise  of  Morals,  Parti., 
Sections  I.  and  II ;  Fowler  and  Wilson :  Principles  of  Morals,  Vol.  II., 
Chapter  VI. ;  Fowler :  Progressive  Morality ;  Aristotle :  Nicomachean 
Ethics,  Books  I.  and  II.,  Book  VII.,  Chapters  VI.-XIV.,  and  Book  X. ; 
Kant:  Metaphysic  of  Morals  ;  Abbott's  Translation,  Sections  I.  and  II. ; 
also  The  Pure  Practical  Eeason,  Book  I, ;  Alexander :  Moral  Order  and 
Progress,  Chapter  V. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

MORALITY   AND   RELIGION. 

/.  INTRODUCTION. — One  of  the  most  perplexing  questions  of 
recent  times  has  been  the  relation  between  morality  and  religion. 
As  long  as  theological  influences  prevailed,  as  they  did  until  the 
modern  scientific  tendencies  against  theology  made  themselves 
felt,  there  were  no  difficulties  and  little  difference  of  opinion. 
But  the  intellectual  and  religious  changes  of  the  past  century 
have  greatly  modified  the  needs  of  thought  and  practice,  and 
consequently  with  skepticism  in  the  ascendant  against  the  tradi- 
tions of  theology,  and  practical  life  demanding  other  than  the 
older  sanctions  for  morality,  there  has  been  some  confusion  and 
much  effort  to  reconstruct  ethics  to  suit  the  intellectual  condi- 
tion of  the  age.     On  the  one  hand,  we  have  the  religious  mind 
telling  us  that  morality  depends  wholly  upon  religion,  and  that 
it  cannot  exist  without  the  religion.    On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
those  who  have  abandoned  theological  beliefs,  and  who  yet  feel 
the  springs  of  duty  as  clearly  and  strongly  as  others,  maintaining 
that  morality  is  wholly  independent  of  religion  and  may  exist 
when  religion  has  been  dissolved.     A  third  party  reverses  the 
(jrder  oi'  dependence  and  makes  religion  depend  upon  morality, 
or  at  lea^it  the  natural  consecpience  of  morality,  and  a  fourth 
party  identifies  the  two,  not  making  either  of  them  dependent 
up<jn  the  otlier,  but  regarding  their  true  contents  as  the  same. 
Tills  view  rejects  anything  more  than  morality  in  the  case  as  un- 
warnintcd  and  illegitimate,  while  the  third  party  holds  that  the 
relation   between  the  two    is  such  that  the  man  vunj  never  go 
beyond  morality,  but  that  he  cannot  be  religious  until  he  does. 
These  four  diflerent  conceptions  make  it  very  diliicult  to  treat 

398 


MORALITY  AXD  RELIGION  399 

the  question  without  joining  in  the  heat  of  the  general  contro- 
versy.    Views  so  radically  opposed  to  each  other  are  not  easily 
reconciled.     Yet  in  spite  of  this  fact  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
current  confusion  on  the  subject  comes  from  the  difficulty  men- 
tioned.    It  is  due  to  very  different  facts.    It  originates  from  the 
failure  at  analysis  of  the  problem  to  be  solved.     There  are  two 
perspicuous  defects  in  all  the  discussions  which  have  come  under 
my  notice.     They  are :  (o)  The  constant  failure  to  define  care- 
fully the  nature  and  contents  of  both  morality  and  religion  before 
comparing  them,  and  (6)  the  failure  to  distinguish  between  the 
historical  and  the  logical,  the  actual  and  the  necessary  relation 
of  morality  to  religion.    In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  derelictions 
it  is  remarkable  that  nearly  all  moralists  leave  religion  wholly 
undefined  in  discussing  its  relation  to  morality.     They  assume 
that  everybody  is  clear  about  its  contents,  an  assumption  that  is 
wholly  unwarranted.     The  fact  is  that  there  are  few  terms  so  in- 
definite and  ambiguous  in  their  meaning  as  the  term  religion. 
There  is  scarcely  any  unanimity  of  opinion  in  regard  to  its  range 
of  application.     Sometimes  it  is  not  distinguished  from  theology, 
which  is  a  theoretical  and  systematic  construction  of  doctrines  per- 
taining to  the  supernatural.    Sometimes  it  is  made  as  distinct  from 
theology  as  actual  morality  is  distinct  from  the  theory  of  ethics. 
Then,  again,  even   when   clearly  distinguished  from   theology, 
sometimes  it  is  conceived  as  a  system  of  beliefs  and  sometimes  as  a 
cult,  which,  although  it  implies  beliefs  of  some  kind,  does  not  lay 
the  stress  upon  them,  but  upon  worship  and  ritual.     There  is  in 
these  several  meanings  material  enough  for  an  enormous  amount 
of  confusion,  not  to  say  anything  of  the  double  confusion  caused 
by  similar  difficulties  in  the  use  of  the  term  morality.     In  dis- 
cussing the  relation  between  this  and  religion  there  is  often  a 
confusion  of  Ethics  as  a  science  with  morality  as  a  habit  of  life, 
when  in  point  of  fact  the  tAvo  are  as  difierent  as  the  science  of 
physics  and  the  practice  of  engineering.     Then  again  even  when 
these  are  distinguished  there  is  the  confusion  of  the  subjective  and 
the   objective   aspects  of  morality.     All  these   ambiguities  are 
sources  enough  of  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  problem.     But 


400  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

they  are  not  all.  The  second  defect  referred  to  above  in  most,  if 
not  all,  discussions  of  the  question  very  much  complicates  the 
confusion.  It  is  the  failure  to  distinguish  between  the  actual  and 
necessary  or  the  historical  and  the  logical  connection  between 
morality  and  religion,  and  the  fallacious  tendency  to  argue  from 
the  former  to  the  latter.  Nothing  can  be  better  established  than 
the  fact  that  religion  and  morality,  however  either  or  both  of 
them  may  be  conceived,  have  been  intimately  connected  in  the 
beliefs  and  practices  of  various  ages.  But  this  mere  fact  is  no 
proof  that  they  should  be  connected ;  nor  does  it  prove  that  the 
conceptions  in  one  field  are  dependent  upon  those  in  the  other. 
This  dependence  may  be  a  fact,  but  it  requires  more  proof  than 
the  mere  circumstance  of  their  historical  connection  to  show 
that  one  depends  on  the  other.  Moreover,  also,  some  illusion  is 
caused  by  the  tendency  to  confuse  the  dependence  of  one  of  them 
upon  the  other  with  their  mere  connection.  Coincidence  of  con- 
tents, however,  does  not  prove  that  either  of  them  conditions  the 
other,  while  it  will  be  found  in  the  sequel  that  they  do  not  ex- 
actly coincide  in  contents.  Hence  it  is  no  wonder  that  there  is 
so  little  clear  thinking  on  this  question,  when  the  analysis  re- 
quired is  not  even  attempted.  In  the  following  discussion  some 
effort  will  be  made  to  correct  these  errors. 

JI.  CONCEPTION  OF  BELIG ION— In  forming  OMY  conception 
of  religion  we  have  several  facts  to  keep  in  mind.  The  first  one 
is  the  various  uses  of  the  term  ;  the  second  is  the  difference 
between  defining  what  is  or  has  been,  and  defining  it  as  it  should 
he  apart  from  the  incidents  which  confuse  its  import ;  and  the 
third  is  the  question  of  its  origin  and  development  with  the  con- 
tents of  it  in  this  process  of  evolution.  Hence  we  must  resolve 
the  matter  into  the  simplest  question  of  which  it  is  possible  and 
keep  all  these  various  conceptions  inde})endent  of  each  other. 
Its  definition  therefore  will  involve  a  careful  analysis. 

1st.  Theology  and  Religion. — These  two  things  are  too  often 
confused  with  cacli  otiici-,  though  they  are  jierfectly  distinct. 
Theology  is  a  theory  al)()ut  the  world  and  its  causes  as  objects  of 
religifju,   while    religion   is  .^imply   an    attitude  of  mind   toward 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  401 

tlicm  involving  emotional  elements.  Theology  is  purely  pcien- 
tific,  pliilosopliic,  and  intellectual,  and  excludes  all  emotional 
considerations  from  its  object.  But  not  so  with  religion,  though 
it  contains  and  implies  beliefs  of  some  kind.  It  is  a  concrete 
attitude  of  mind  involving  both  intellectual  and  emotional  ele- 
ments, the  latter  probably  predominating.  Theology,  however, 
is  a  form  of  philosophy,  differing  only  from  that  subject  in  gen-^ 
eral  in  the  conception  of  personality  which  it  places  at  the  basis 
of  all  phenomena,  and  it  is  perfectly  compatible  with  the  non- 
existence of  religion  altogether.  A  religion  also  may  exist 
without  any  theology,  though  it  contains  the  material  out  of 
which  a  theology  may  be  developed.  Theology  is  a  reasoned 
system  of  doctrines,  religion  is  a  spontaneous  belief  and  act  of 
reverence  for  the  divine,  and  hence  the  two  things  are  as  dis- 
tinct as  speculative  philosophy  and  the  common  beliefs  of  man- 
kind, though  we  often  find  men  contending  for  theological 
theories  as  if  they  had  all  the  value  and  efficiency  of  concrete 
religious  beliefs  and  practices,  when  the  fact  is  that  a  man  may 
be  ever  so  religious  without  having  a  theology  at  all  (except 
ev  dwd/xEi)  and  may  have  a  well-developed  theology  without 
being  religious.  The  relation  between  theology  and  religion  is 
the  same  as  that  between  ethics  and  morality.  Ethics  is  a 
science,  morality  is  life  or  conduct.  The  former  is  the  product 
of  pure  reason,  the  latter  is  tinged  with  emotion,  the  concrete 
expression  of  the  whole  of  a  man's  moral  nature.  So  with  the- 
ology ;  it  is  the  product  of  reason,  with  the  same  objects  as 
religion,  but  eliminating  the  very  element  that  makes  religion 
what  it  is. 

2d.  Definition  of  Religion. — After  eliminating  the  scientific 
and  philosophic  element  as  denoting  reflection  upon  religion,  we 
shall  define  religion  to  be  both  a  creed  and  a  cult  in  regard  to 
divine  and  supernatural  things,  taking  supernatural  here  to  mean 
whatever  is  transcendental  to  direct  human  exjierience.  It  is, 
therefore,  both  a  belief  and  a  mode  of  worship  ;  not  necessarily  a 
ritualistic  or  external  form  of  worship,  but  at  least  a  reverential 
attitude  of  mind  involving  respect  and  obedience  to  a  supreme 


402  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

power.  It  is  not  enough  that  there  shoukl  be  a  mere  belief  iu 
the  divine  existence,  or  in  any  other  dogma,  in  order  to  be  a 
religion.  There  may  be  any  amount  of  intellectual  assent  to 
truth  and  the  essential  element  of  religion  may  be  wanting. 
The  belief  must  have  an  influence  on  life  and  thought,  and  it 
must  be  accompanied  by  a  certain  amount  of  positive  reverence 
and  respect  for  the  nature  and  authority,  or  the  power,  of  the 
being  who  is  the  object  of  belief.  It,  of  course,  assumes  the 
truth  and  reality  of  the  objects  which  it  reveres,  but  it  does  not 
necessarily  give  any  reason  for  this  belief,  nor  attempt  to  ration- 
alize it.  It  is  mainly  an  emotion  with  a  suflicient  background 
of  intellectual  element  to  give  it  a  definite  and  pertinent  object. 
As  Mr.  jNIartincau  puts  it :  "  The  essence  of  religion  lies  iu  com- 
munion between  the  finite  and  the  infinite  mind,  between  the 
individual  soul  and  the  universal." 

The  definition  here  is  made  as  broad  as  possible,  to  cover  every 
possible  form  of  belief  and  reverence  for  the  supernatural,  from 
fetichism  to  modern  theism.  This  is  the  only  way  to  recognize 
the  common  elements  in  all  those  creeds  and  cults  which  go  by 
the  name  of  religion.  "We  have  to  remember,  however,  that  this 
merely  defines  religion  as  it  is  and  has  been,  and  does  not  define 
it  with  that  difiercntial  clement  which  is  supposed  to  characterize 
the  true  religion.  In  fact  we  cannot  undertake  in  a  general  dis- 
cussion to  define  the  true  religion.  It  is  not  the  place  to  do  so. 
But  the  dissatisfaction  which  many  will  feel  at  the  failure  to 
describe  religion  more  suitably  to  the  modern  complex  concep- 
tion of  it  is  a  reason  for  noting  another  ambiguity  of  the  term. 
In  speaking  of  the  relation  l)etwcen  religion  and  morality  most 
persons  have  in  mind,  not  the  comprehensive  and  elaborated  or 
formal  definition  of  either  one  of  them,  but  the  concrete  beliefs 
and  practices  of  their  own  time.  Religion  to  them  will  mean 
the  concrete  religions  of  their  age.  In  uuuiy  cases,  general  as 
the  term  is,  it  means  only  Christianity.  In  all  such  cases  the 
question  of  the  rchilion  of  religion  and  morality  is  decided  by  the 
facts,  lint  when  we  undertake  to  determine  that  relation  scien- 
tifically we  must  seek  the  fmidanicntal  conception  of  both  and 


MORALITY  AXD  RELIGION  403 

solve  the  problem  accordingly.  The  problem  is  a  manifold  one. 
First,  what  is  the  relation  between  actual  religions  and  the 
actual  codes  of  conduct  ?  Second,  what  is  the  relation  between 
actual  religions  and  ideal  or  true  morality  ?  Third,  what  is  the 
relation  between  true  religion  and  ideal  or  true  morality  ?  The 
first  of  these  questions  is  answered  by  the  facts  of  observation 
and  history.  The  second  shows  a  tendency  to  define  religion  in 
the  concrete  and  morality  in  the  abstract,  and  is  the  favorite 
conception  of  the  skeptic,  w^ho  can  easily  find  discrepancies 
between  concrete  or  actual  religion  and  abstract  or  ideal  moral- 
ity, discrepancies  which  make  it  advisable  to  separate  them  or  to 
purify  religion.  The  third  question  represents  the  true  concep- 
tion of  the  problem,  and  the  only  one  which  is  capable  of  a 
proper  and  philosophic  answer.  We  require  carefully  to  define 
the  essential  elements  of  religion  and  morality  both  as  they  are 
and  as  they  ought  to  be,  and  then  to  compare  them  on  the  same 
level,  and  not  to  compare  the  concrete  conception  of  one  with 
the  abstract  conception  of  the  other. 

Now,  the  logical  definition  of  religion  involves  a  statement  of 
its  essential  and  necessary  elements,  mthout  which  that  term 
Avould  not  be  applied  to  it,  except  by  sufferance.  Hence  we 
have  defined  it  as  a  belief  and  a  cult,  a  belief  in  supernatural 
agencies  and  existence,  and  a  cult  or  mode  of  worship,  involving 
a  certain  measure  of  respect  and  obedience  to  these  agencies  as 
having  power  over  us.  The  differential  element  in  the  concep- 
tion here  is  the  idea  of  the  supernatural.  The  creed  and  cult 
must  be  regarding  this  or  it  will  not  constitute  a  religion. 
"What  connection  this  has  with  morality  will  be  seen  when  moral- 
ity has  been  defined  in  the  proper  way.  Enough,  however,  has 
been  determined  to  suggest  certain  diflTerences  which  separate 
them,  whatever  points  of  conjunction  may  be  found  at  another 
time. 

But  while  this  definition  indicates  what  is  essential,  and  all  that 
is  essential  to  a  religion,  it  docs  not  represent  all  the  concrete 
elements  that  are  often  comprehended  in  the  term  and  constitute 
the  common  understanding  of  its  meaning.     To  make  its  com- 


404  ELEMEXIS  OF  ETHICS 

plex  and  concrete  coucejjtion  clear  it  will  be  necessary  to  exam- 
ine briefly  the  evjilution  of  religion  and  of  the  conception  of  it. 
This  takes  us  over  all  forms  of  it,  and  indicates  the  elements  not 
expressly  noted  in  the  definition. 

3d.  Development  and  Contents  of  Religion — We  shall  here 
have  to  do  with  religion  or  religions  in  the  concrete.  The  sub- 
ject must  be  dealt  with  very  briefly  and  with  as  little  allusion  as 
possible  to  the  contents  of  the  numerous  religions  of  history. 
The  chief  practical  interest  in  "Western  civilization  is  the  relation 
between  Christian  conceptions  and  morality.  But  these  concep- 
tions are  very  complex  and  take  up  into  themselves  the  total  re- 
sults of  history. 

It  is  probable  that  the  first  stage  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness was  a  mere  belief  in  the  existence  of  supernatural  forces, 
such  as  the  universal  existence  of  souls  in  nature.  This  would 
be  the  belief  described  by  the  term  animism,  and  might  also  in- 
clude the  belief  in  ancestral  souls  and  ghosts.  But  the  latter 
does  not  require  notice,  though  it  represents  a  religious  belief  of 
an  interesting  kind  connected  often  with  peculiar  ceremonies 
and  sacrifices  for  appeasing  the  will  of  such  agencies.  The  be- 
lief in  animism,  however,  is  the  immediate  precursor  of  polytheism, 
which  represents  a  more  anthropomorphic  conception  of  super- 
natural existence  and  lays  less  stress  upon  the  animistic  nature 
of  everything.  It  represents  a  stage  of  generalization  reducing 
supernatural  agencies  of  any  importance  for  man  to  a  smaller 
number  than  animism  in)plies. 

The  second  stage  or  element  of  the  earliest  form  of  religion 
was  that  of  the  propitiation  of  supernatural  agencies.  This  was 
done  in  various  ways,  sometimes  by  sacrifices,  vegetable,  animal, 
or  human,  or  Ijy  the  performance  of  certain  rites.  The  concep- 
tion here  was  not  only  of  the  existence  of  supernatural  beings, 
but  nhi)  of  their  power  to  interfere  with  numdane  afiairs  and  to 
command  the  services  of  man.  Here  begins  the  notion  of  a 
providential  system  though  characterized  by  the  peculiar  ideas 
of  the  time,  which  did  little  or  nothing  to  idealize  tlie  1)eiiigs  wlio 
had  .fi)  much  power.     Fear  could  be  the  only  attitude  of  miud 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  405 

towards  agencies  enjoying  so  much  arbitrary  power  and  without 
any  moral  character.  They  were  to  be  2:)ropitiated  only  by  some 
form  of  self-mutilation  or  sacrifice.  The  religion  of  this  stage 
was  only  a  religion  of  fear  and  terror.  But  the  belief  in  super- 
natural existence  and  the  propitiation  of  such  agencies  represent 
together  the  creed  and  cult  elements  of  early  religion,  later  de- 
velopments simply  adding  new  elements  or  modifying  the  old 
ones. 

The  polytheistic  stage  was  largely  mythological  in  its  concep- 
tions and  so  represented  the  deification  of  natural  forces.  The 
transition  to  the  next  higher  stage,  which  we  shall  call  monothe- 
ism, was  characterized  by  a  philosophic  movement  of  the  cosmo- 
logical  type.  The  unification  of  the  forces  of  nature  in  a  single 
all-pervading  substance  was  the  signal  for  reducing  the  gods  to 
unity  also.  This  Avas  done  by  exalting  one  of  them  to  the  su- 
preme place  of  authority  and  power  and  the  reduction  of  all  the 
others  to  his  subjects  or  vassals.  Monotheism  was  thus  estab- 
lished, and  it  carried  Avith  it  corresponding  elements  of  intellec- 
tual culture.  There  arose  a  tendency  to  idealize  God ;  that  is, 
to  attribute  certain  moral  perfections  to  him.  The  notion  of 
propitiation  remained,  and  remains  still  in  theology,  but  it  was 
softened  by  the  moral  advances  of  the  age.  There  were  three 
elements  in  this  stage.  They  were :  (a)  The  personality  of  the 
divine  ;  (ft)  the  providential  agency  of  the  divine ;  and  (c)  the 
idealization  of  the  divine.  The  notion  of  personality  existed  in 
the  polytheistic  stage,  but  the  other  elements  were  absent.  Re- 
ligion went  no  further  than  a  belief  and  a  cult  in  behalf  of  per- 
sonal interests.  But  under  monotheism  the  religious  conceptions 
of  the  world  at  large  reflected  the  new  and  higher  social  condi- 
tions and  ideas,  representing,  on  the  one  hand,  moral  character  in 
the  divine,  and  on  the  other,  a  providential  government  for  other 
interests  than  those  of  the  divine  alone. 

The  next  stage  represents  the  highly  organized  religions  of 
the  present  age,  though  their  origin  extends  back  into  earlier 
times.  The  only  one  to  be  considered  here  is  Christianity. 
This  had  its  rise  in  a  purely  social  and  moral  scheme,  but  soon 


40G  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

after  its  founder's  death  assumed  a  theological  form  and  rapidly 
developed  into  a  most  elaborate  system.  It  took  up  the  cosmo- 
logical  elements  of  earlier  philosophies  and  transformed  them  by 
the  introduction  of  purely  theological  doctrines.  The  various 
elements  constituting  Christianity  are  as  follows :  («)  The  person- 
ality of  God ;  (i)  providential  government  of  the  world ;  (c) 
the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  (d)  the  divinity  of  Christ,  the 
founder  of  it ;  (e)  a  scheme  of  redemption  involving  propitiation 
by  vicarious  atonement  and  good  works ;  (/)  the  inspiration  of 
the  Scriptures ;  (g)  the  cultivation  of  humanity  and  personal 
righteousness  as  a  condition  of  realizing  "  the  kingdom  of  God," 
which  covers  the  moralization  of  the  present  life  and  salvation 
in  the  next,  and  (/i)  a  form  of  worship. 

The  theological  development  of  Christianity  contains  all  these 
elements  as  essentials,  and  it  is  clear  that  social  and  ethical  con- 
ceptions are  very  important  parts  of  it,  having  adhered  to  it  from 
the  first,  when  it  was  solely  an  organized  effort  to  moralize  the 
individual  will,  partly  by  religious  sanctions  and  partly  by  in- 
voking the  natural  affections  and  sympathies.  It  contained 
only  one  element  of  religion  at  the  outset,  as  we  have  defined  it, 
and  this  was  a  belief  in  the  divine,  which  was  spontaneous,  and 
not  reflective  or  philosoiihic.  A  mode  of  worship  soon  became 
a  part  of  it,  both  from  the  example  of  the  founder  and  the  relig- 
ious needs  of  its  devotees. 

This  complex  mass  of  beliefs  and  enjoined  practices  shows  us 
religion  in  the  concrete  as  we  see  and  know  it  about  us.  That 
it  has  a  very  intimate  relation  to  morality,  as  a  fact,  ought  to  be 
unquestioned.  A  large  element  of  its  demands  upon  the  indi- 
vidual are  moral  demands,  and  they  have  been  sanctioned  upon 
religious  grounds.  But  whether  there  is  any  alwolute  necessity 
for  a  resort  to  these  sanctions  is  another  question.  The  social 
and  religious  history  of  the  last  eigliteen  centuries  has  largely 
identified  Christianity  with  morality.  But  while  this  is  a  histor- 
ical fact,  it  does  not  prove  the  dependence  of  that  morality  upon 
Christian  sanctions,  which  is  the  common  illusion  of  mankind, 
when  asked  to  give  a  reason  for  this  morality.     It  is  noticeable 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  407 

also  that  there  are  many  theological  elements  in  this  concrete 
conception  of  religion  which  are  not  any  part  of  it  in  the  com- 
prehensive sense  of  our  definition.  The  further  connection  of  it 
with  morality,  however,  can  be  discussed  only  when  we  have 
recapitulated  the  conception  of  morals. 

///.  CONCEPTION  OF  MORALITY. — Morality  is  good  tvill 
and  good  conduct,  and  hence  is  actloii  with  reference  to  man  as  an 
end  in  himself.  This  definition  comprehends  both  the  subjective 
and  objective  aspects  of  it.  It  limits  the  purpose  (tI\o3)  of 
conduct  to  man  and  may  or  may  not  extend  its  range  of  impor- 
tance beyond  the  present  state  of  existence.  But  in  determining 
the  contents  of  morality  we  have  a  wide  field  of  phenomena  to 
cover.  It  comprehends  every  form  of  conduct  from  simple  self- 
preservation  to  self-sacrifice.  But  we  must  classify  its  forms  and 
develop  their  meaning. 

1st.  Adjustment  to  Environment. — This  involves  the  virtue  of 
protection  against  injury  of  all  kinds,  or  the  preservation  of 
personal  and  physical  integrity.  It  takes  these  forms,  ^9 /(^.sica/, 
political,  and  social  adjustment,  involving  the  three  duties  of 
self-preservation,  civil  justice,  and  social  equity.  This  is  purely 
an  objective  element  of  morality  and  represents  the  external 
forces  which  impose  limitations  on  human  liberty.  Conformity 
to  them  is  necessary  as  a  condition  of  realizing  any  other  de- 
sired end. 

2d.  Realization  of  an  Ideal  Order. — Besides  mere  adjustment 
to  external  forces,  whether  physical  or  personal,  there  is  a 
field  in  which  the  human  will  can  exert  itself  to  modify  those 
forces  themselves.  Hence  its  virtues  or  duties  are  not  limited  to 
submission,  but  extend  to  aggressive  measures  for  establishing 
better  physical  and  moral  conditions  in  the  world,  as  well  as 
perfecting  the  agent's  own  powers.  The  duties  here  are  those  of 
education,  including  the  culture  of  science  and  art  and  the  ex- 
penditure of  one's  powers  and  resources  in  modifying  the  social 
and  physical  conditions  of  life.  A  better  human  order  is  the 
object  of  such  duties  and  eflbrts.  This  is  also  an  objective  feature 
of  morality. 


408  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

3d.  The  Exercise  of  Good  Will. — This  is  the  subjective  as- 
pect of  morality,  and  represents  the  demand  made  upon  con- 
science whether  a  man  is  able  to  adjust- himself  to  environment 
and  to  realize  a  better  order  of  the  world  or  not.  jMorality  here 
means  volition  from  the  sense  of  duty  or  its  ricjldness.  The  con- 
sequences may  be  what  they  please  ;  the  will  must  aim  rightly. 
Man  must  look  upon  himself  as  an  end,  as  having  rational  worth 
in  the  order  of  existence,  and  seek  to  preserve  that  Avorth.  Or 
if  we  wish  to  put  the  matter  upon  a  lower  plane,  we  can  express 
the  ultimate  end  as  welfare,  happiness,  or  perfection.  But  as  we 
are  expressing  it  in  terms  of  the  will  Ave  prefer  to  formulate  the 
subjective  side  of  morality  so  that  it  shall  rejD resent  life  accord- 
ing to  law,  or  the  ideal  will,  seeking  to  transfigure  all  its  voli- 
tions with  the  sense  of  duty,  so  that  the  manner  of  action  may 
be  right  whatever  mishajj  may  occur  to  its  matter.  Conscien- 
tiousness is  its  content,  and  while  it  may  extend  to  any  object 
whatever,  it  does  not  require  more  than  obedience  to  the  moral 
imperative,  which  may  not  demand  more  than  the  perfection  of 
the  individual  will. 

INlorality,  then,  being  represented  by  good  will  and  good  con- 
duct, which  may  be  determined  in  many,  if  not  in  all,  cases, 
without  the  aid  of  religion,  the  only  question  that  remains  is  to 
ascertain  their  relation  to  each  other,  whether  it  is  one  of  de- 
pendence, independence,  or  identity. 

IV.  THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  MORAL- 
ITY.— The  definition  and  analysis  show  us  the  contents  of  both 
religion  and  morality,  and  now  the  more  difficult  problem  is  to  be 
solved.  More  than  one  aspect  of  it  will  have  to  be  taken  into 
account.     But  first  as  to  contents. 

The  definition  of  religion  shows  that  there  must  be  a  belief  in 
the  supernatural  and  some  regard  for  it  as  a  condition  of  the 
very  existence  of  religion.  This  is  not  the  case  with  morality  so 
far  as  its  objective  aspect  and  contents  are  concerned.  The  be- 
lief in  the  supernatural  is  not  necessary  to  it.  Its  object  is  man 
and  his  welfare,  and  not  the  propitiation  or  satisfaction  of  divine 
power.     The  fact  also  is  that  it  may  not  seek  a  hereafter  as  its 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  409 

jjiimary  justification  or  sanction,  while  religion  usually  iuckides 
as  one  of  its  objects  a  regard  to  inimortality  as  a  principle  of 
conduct.  When  it  does  not  it  is  a  cult.  There  is  nothing  to 
prevent  morality  from  thus  taking  iuto  account  the  future 
after  death  as  well  as  the  whole  scope  of  the  present  life.  In 
fact,  it  may  be  admitted  that  the  highest  morality  will  do  so, 
seeking  adjustment  to  the  eternal  as  well  as  the  temporal.  But 
conduct  may  be  moral  or  immoral  without  either  a  belief  in  a 
hereafter  or  adjustment  with  reference  to  it,  but  with  reference 
only  to  the  present.  There  is  even  danger  that  an  eye  to  a 
transcendental  existence,  of  whose  conditions  we  know  nothing 
by  experience,  may  obscure  and  divert  us  from  many  duties  in 
the  present.  Hence  while  morality  may  have  a  meaning  for 
eternity,  this  is  not  its  only  imjiort.  Morality  has  a  value  and 
an  obligation  when  its  purpose  does  not  extend  beyond  the 
moralization  of  the  present  existence.  Hence  its  contents  do 
not  necessarily  include  a  supernatural  reference. 

This  position  can  be  reinforced  by  an  admission  of  religionists 
themselves.  The  strictest  religious  orthodoxy  always  tells  us 
that  morality  will  not  save  a  man,  but  that  faith,  grace,  and 
atonement  are  essential  to  this  end.  In  fact,  the  amount  of 
emphasis  laid  upon  the  insufficiency  of  morality  for  redemption 
is  astonishing  when  we  consider  that  immorality  alone  is  uni- 
versally regarded  as  a  sufficient  reason  for  damnation.  The 
confession,  however,  only  proves  that  morality  may  exist,  that 
meritorious  conduct  and  character  may  exist  without  any  ac- 
companiment of  the  religious  consciousness  necessary  to  spir- 
itual salvation,  and  that  is  sufficient  proof  that  religion  is  not 
the  only  condition  of  an  ethical  life.  The  real  motive  for 
asserting  the  insufficiency  of  morality  for  eternal  redemption 
came  from  the  logical  exigencies  of  the  controversy  between 
Greek  and  Christian  thought,  and  from  the  hard  and  fast  line 
drawn  l)y  theology  between  the  redeemed  and  the  lost.  On  the 
one  hand,  Greek  philosophy  asserted  the  adequacy  of  natural 
morality,  and  the  Christian  inferred  from  the  supposed  truth  of 
this  claim  that  there  would  be  no  need  for  the  distinctly  Chris- 


410  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

tiau  schcn^e  on  that  supposition.  Faitb,  atonement,  and  grace 
were  supposed  to  be  purely  supererogatory,  if  the  same  end  could 
be  attained  by  moral  volition.  On  the  other  hand,  the  failure  of 
theology  to  recognize  degrees  of  redemption  and  damnation,  or  of 
conditions  expressed  by  them,  cut  itself  off  from  admitting  any 
redemptive  agency  in  morality,  though  it  was  inconsistent  in 
asserting  the  damning  agency  of  immorality.  If  faith,  grace,  and 
atonement  are  necessary  to  salvation,  or  are  the  primary  condi- 
tion of  it,  then  the  rejection  of  these,  or  infidelity,  should  be  the 
only  proper  condition  of  damnation.  However  this  may  be,  the 
one  motive  for  asserting  the  insufficiency  of  morality  was  the  fear 
that  men  might  be  saved  without  the  need  of  admitting  Christian- 
ity ;  but  in  asserting  that  religion  is  a  condition  of  morality,  theol- 
ogy forgot  the  independence  of  the  latter  implied  in  its  insuflSciency 
for  redemption. 

In  their  essential  contents,  therefore,  religion  and  morality  are 
wholly  independent  of  each  other.  Religion,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
a  creed  and  a  cult,  a  belief  and  form  of  worship,  directed  to  the 
supernatural ;  morality  is  good  will  and  conduct  directed  to  the 
welfare  of  man ;  in  some  cases  is  nothing  more  than  right  social 
relations.  Thus  God  is  the  object  of  one  and  man  the  object  of 
the  other.  This  single  fact  stamps  them  as  distinct  provinces. 
But  nevertheless  it  does  not  solve  the  whole  of  the  problem 
before  us.  The  relation  between  them  is  not  altogether  one 
which  can  be  decided  by  a  comi)arisou  of  their  contents  and 
objects.  The  traditional  claim  of  the  theologian  has  been  that 
religion  is  essential  to  morality ;  that  morality  has  its  foundation 
in  religion  and  religious  postulates.  It  has  always  been  under- 
stood to  mean  either  that  unless  the  doctrines  of  theism  are  true, 
morality  is  not  obligatory,  or  that  unless  a  man  is  religious,  he 
will  not  be  moral.  Hence  we  are  recpiired  to  study  the  problem 
from  the  standpoint  of  its  ground,  as  well  as  its  contents  and 
objects. 

The  theological  [)o.sition  seems  to  be  a  very  simple  one,  and  is 
taken  to  be  sucli  l)y  nearly  all  disputants.  But  this  is  not  the 
case.     It  involves  t\vo  t(jtally  distinct  (questions  as  it  is  usually 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  411 

discussed.     They    are   the    question    of    the    ground    and    the 
question  of  the  sanctions  of  mol•alit3^     These  two  aspects  of  the 
problem  are  wholly  independent  of  each  other.     The  ground  of 
morality  must  be  either  the  nature  of  the  Absolute,  or  the  end  to 
which  volition  is  directed,  or  it  may  be  both.     Under  the  first 
conception  of  the  case  we  must  undoubtedly  find  an  ultimate 
basis  for  morality  in  the  postulates  or  conclusions  of  metaphysics, 
and  it   does   not  matter   whether   we    regard    the  Absolute  as 
personal  or  not,  so  that  the  theological  or  religious  view  has  no 
more  claims  than  any  other  point  of  view.     But  if  it  be  the  end 
of  volition  that  determines  the  ground  of  morality,  metaphysics 
and  theology  may  both  be  shut  out  fi'om  being  the  only  court  of 
judicature  in  the  case,  unless  they  are  called  upon  to  decide  the 
end  of  conduct.     Moreover,  the  end  is  the  only  datum  which 
can  determine  the  contents  of  morality,  and  if  theology  cannot 
assign  the  end  of  conduct,  or  if  this  end  can  be  decided  inde- 
pendently of  theology,  morality  will  not  depend  wholly  upon  the 
postulates  of  metaphysics.     But  the  chief  illusion  of  those  who 
assert  an  exclusively  religious  basis  for  morality  is  that  they 
confuse  the  condition  of  its  validity  with  the   condition  of  our 
knowledge  of  its  validity.     They  discuss  the  whole  question  as  if 
we  had  to  believe  the  theory  of  virtue  before  we  could  be  virtu- 
ous ;  as  if  we  had  to  believe  the  ground  of  it  before  we  could  be- 
lieve it  binding  or  practice  it.     There  is  no  more  absurd  illusion. 
It  may  be  true  that  all  morality  has  its  ground  in  some  ultimate 
truths,   metaphysical  or  theological,  or  the  condition  of  things 
represented  by  those  truths.     But  it  does  not  follow  either  that 
we  w^ould  not  know  or  that  we  could  not  practice  morality  until 
we  admit  those  truths.     The  fact  is  that  we  know  and  practice 
morality   before   we   think   of  seeking   its   grounds   anywhere. 
Hence,  while  the  nature  of  morality,  as  a  phenomenon  in  the 
world,  may  well  have  a  basis  in  the  Absolute  which  is  an  object 
of  metaphysical  study,  the  knoivledge  of  it  has  no  such  basis,  and 
all  that  is  required  for  morality  to  exist  is  that  a  man  have  a 
knowledge  of  its  end   and  to  pursue  that  end  conscientiously, 
whether  he  possesses  a  belief  and  a  cult  regarding  the  super- 


412  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

natural  or  not.  ^Morality  comes  from  the  springs  of  character, 
from  good  will  and  insight  as  to  the  moral  end,  and  not  from  a 
knowledge  of  metaphysical  or  theological  postulates ;  nor  any 
more  from  religious  beliefs  arid  practices.  This  should  be  evi- 
dent to  that  whole  school  of  moralists  who  have  defended  the 
natural  and  implanted  character  of  conscience  as  a  part  of  man's 
endowment,  while  maintaining  the  revealed  nature  of  religion 
and  Christianity. 

In  regard  to  the  second  question,  we  must  remark  the  fact  that 
the  sanctions  of  morality  bear  no  necessary  relation  to  its 
grounds.  They  are  not  the  basis  of  right,  but  are  only  reasons 
for  doing  it.  These  reasons  for  doing  right  do  not  necessa- 
rily constitute  its  nature  in  all  cases,  but  may  represent  motives 
independent  of  the  nature  of  morality  itself.  The  theologian  too 
often  confuses  this  problem  with  that  of  the  grounds  of  right. 
Now,  we  frankly  admit  that  religion  may  be  a  sanction  of  moral- 
ity :  it  may  be  the  highest  sanction.  But  it  is  not  the  only  sanc- 
tion. The  religious  mind  makes  the  mistake  of  supposing  that 
religion  is  the  ouly  sanction,  and  the  anti-religious  mind  the  mis- 
take of  supposing  that  it  cannot  be  a  genuine  sanction  at  all. 

The  problem  in  Ethics  is  a  twofold  one.  It  seeks,  first,  to  de- 
termine the  nature,  contents,  and  ground  of  morality  (ratio  es- 
sendi).  Ultimately  this  can  be  ouly  one  principle.  Then  as  a 
second  object  it  endeavors  to  find  reasons  for  doing  what  is  right, 
arguments  that  may  make  it  effective  (ratio  movendi).  The 
latter  does  not  necessarily  coincide  with  the  former.  The  ulti- 
mate ground  of  morality,  or  its  intrinsic  worth,  is  always  a  rea- 
son for  realizing  it,  l)ut  it  may  not  present  an  effective  motive  to 
the  will.  The  ideal  may  have  no  efficiency.  PIcnce  we  may 
resort  to  any  other  incidents  in  its  nature  or  connections  to  induce 
conformity  to  it.  Thus  we  may  assert  that  morality  is  a  part  of 
the  will  of  God,  a  part  of  His  revelation,  in  order  to  obtain  all 
the  motive  force  attaching  to  the  acceptance  of  those  facts  for 
securing  conduct  whose  inherent  character  is  not  a  sufficient  mo- 
tive to  effect  the  will.  In  that  case  we  are  only  appealing  to  a 
recognized  authority  for  obtaining  at  least  self-consistency  on  the 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  413 

part  of  the  agent.  If  be  admits  the  existence  and  ideal  nature 
of  God,  and  appreciates  the  religious  consciousness  at  all,  he 
must  naturally  feel  that  God's  character  and  commands,  though 
they  do  not  make  morality,  may  be  a  reason  for  obedience  and 
for  doing  the  right.  To  such  a  person  religion  must  be  the 
highest  sanction  for  morality.  And  when  we  come  to  recognize 
that  the  conception  of  God  is  the  highest  ideal  man  can  know, 
and  that  He  represents  the  highest  sovereign  of  the  universe,  His 
character  and  authority,  taken  with  His  assumed  omniscience, 
omnipresence,  and  omnipotence,  must  form  the  most  important 
and  effective  of  all  sanctions. 

But  the  religious  mind  wholly  forgets  that  the  effectiveness  of 
this  sanction  depends  upon  the  agent's  admitting  the  existence  of 
God  and  the  truth  of  religion.  Unless  they  are  admitted  it  is 
useless  to  contend  for  them  as  reasons  for  doing  what  is  right. 
When  a  man  does  not  admit  the  truth  of  religion  and  religious 
doctrines,  or  does  not  feel  their  value,  any  attempt  to  make  moral- 
ity and  its  obligations  depend  wholly  upon  them,  must  issue  in 
shifting  the  controversy  away  from  the  nature  and  validity  of 
morality  to  the  truth  of  religion,  and  in  the  meantime  Ethics 
must  pay  the  forfeit.  Now,  there  are  many  minds  that  are  skepti- 
cal in  matters  of  religion,  that  either  deny  the  supernatural  and 
affiliated  beliefs  or  are  too  uncertain  about  them  to  base  their 
conduct  upon  so  insecure  a  foundation,  and  yet  feel  the  springs 
of  conscience  and  duty  quite  as  forcibly  as  the  religious  mind. 
They  feel  the  value  and  imperativeness  of  moral  law  as  fully  as 
anybody  else,  and  yet  know  that  if  its  validity  depends  upon  the 
acceptance  of  religion,  they  must  be  exempt  from  its  obligations, 
because  to  them  religion  is  wholly  an  uncertain  quantity.  They 
are  entirely  within  their  rights,  therefore,  when  they  seek  extra- 
religious  sanctions  for  morality.  What  they  stand  for  is  the  idea 
that  religious  consciousness,  in  so  far  as  it  represents  a  belief  in 
the  supernatural,  and  a  form  of  worship,  is  not  a  precondition  of 
knowing  what  is  moral  and  feeling  its  imperative  worth.  They 
can  be  as  earnest  and  self-sacrificing  as  religious  persons,  and  de- 
sire in  some  way,  not  only  to  identify  their  lives  with  the  world's 


414  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

regeneration,  but  also  to  give  effective  reasons  for  morality  with- 
out engulfing  themselves  in  the  swamps  of  theological  contro- 
versy. They  would  avoid  this  and  seek  independent  reasons  for 
virtue,  so  that  it  may  be  saved,  whatever  the  issue  in  religious 
questions.  Now,  there  may  be  any  number  of  sanctions  for  mo- 
rality outside  of  religion,  and  this  without  denying  that  religion, 
if  true,  furnishes  the  most  valuable  of  all  sanctions.  They  are 
utility  or  happiness,  self-consistency,  perfection,  the  value  of  the 
ideal,  social  order,  public  opinion,  law,  and  any  influence  which 
exists  in  favor  of  morality,  and  which  may  be  employed  to  move 
the  mind.  The  ground  of  morality,  the  ultimate  object  of  voli- 
tion is  the  true  and  most  universal  of  the  sanctions  for  it.  But 
it  is  not  always  effective,  especially  when  personal  interest  con- 
flicts or  seems  to  conflict  with  it.  Hence  much  importance  of  a 
practical  kind  attaches  to  securing  a  fact  which  will  show  an 
agreement  between  duty  and  interest  in  the  particular  case.  This 
will  be  a  reason  for  doing  it  when  the  ideal  itself  is  ineffective. 
The  attainment  of  a  practical  reason  for  being  moral  is  the  great 
object  of  practical  Ethics,  and  of  those  who  feel  that  the  religious 
sanction  loses  its  efficiency  with  the  extension  of  skepticism.  "We 
conclude,  therefore,  that  religion  is  not  the  only  sanction  of 
morality,  and  is  not  even  the  most  universal  or  eflective  sanc- 
tion, for  the  reason  that  its  nature  and  validity  is  still  an  open 
question  with  many  of  our  most  earnest  minds,  whose  co-operation 
is  too  much  needed  in  morality  to  shut  them  out  from  sympathy, 
l)y  turning  the  whole  problem  into  a  theological  disjiute  about 
the  existence  of  God  and  the  importance  of  ritual  worship.  These 
have  their  place  and  value ;  but  their  difficulties  are  greater  than 
those  of  the  moral  law,  and  hence  the  validity  and  security  of 
the  latter  should  not  be  weakened  by  the  uncertainties  of  the 
former. 

]\Ir.  !Martineau '''  states  the  whole  case  very  clearly  to  prove 

what  has  just  been  maintained.     "  If  we   start  from  our  own 

psychological  experience  alone,"  he  says,  "  without  assumption 

or  speculation  respecting  the  universe  around,  we  meet  there,  at 

*  Study  of  Keligioii,  \o\.  I.,  Introduction. 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  415 

a  very  early  stage,  witli  ethical  elements,  involving  the  idea  and 
furnisliing  tlie  rule  of  duty.  Childhood  itself,  small  as  are  its 
concerns,  is  full  of  its  moral  enthusiasms  and  indignations,  quick 
with  its  shame  and  compunction,  bright  with  its  self-approval ; 
and  with  all  its  heedlessness  betrays  every  day  the  inner  work- 
ing and  the  eager  growth  of  Conscience.  This  order  of  feeling, 
personal  and  sympathetic,  does  not  wait  for  the  lessons  of  the 
religious  instructor  and  the  conception  of  the  universe  as  under 
Divine  administration ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  condition  on 
which  such  teaching  depends  for  its  efficacy,  and  is  present  where 
no  theological  sequel  is  ever  appended  to  it.  The  profound 
sense  of  the  authority  and  even  sacredness  of  the  moral  law  is 
often  conspicuous  among  men  whose  thoughts  apparently  never 
turn  to  superhuman  things,  but  who  are  penetrated  by  a  secret 
worship  of  honor,  truth,  and  right.  Were  this  noble  state  of 
mind  brought  out  of  its  impulsive  state  and  made  to  unfold  its 
implicit  contents,  it  would  indeed  reveal  a  source  higher  than 
human  nature  for  the  august  authority  of  righteousness.  But  it 
is  undeniable  that  the  authority  may  be  felt  where  it  is  not  seen, 
felt  as  if  it  tvere  the  mandate  of  a  Perfect  Will,  while  yet  there 
is  no  overt  recognition  of  such  will ;  i.e.,  conscience  may  act  as 
human  before  it  is  discovered  to  be  divine.  To  the  agent  him- 
self its  whole  history  may  seem  to  lie  in  his  own  personality  and 
his  visible  social  relations  ;  and  it  shall  nevertheless  serve  as  his 
oracle,  though  it  may  be  hid  from  him  ivho  it  is  that  utters  it. 
The  moral  consciousness,  while  thus  pausing  short  of  its  complete 
development,  fulfills  the  conditions  of  responsible  life  and  makes 
character  real  and  the  virtues  possible.  Ethics,  therefore,  have 
practical  existence  and  operation  prior  to  any  explicit  religious 
belief;  the  law  of  right  is  inwoven  with  the  very  tissue  of  our 
nature  and  throbs  in  the  movements  of  our  experience,  and  can- 
not be  escaped  by  any  one  till  he  can  fly  from  himself  Did  we 
even  imagine  that  we  came  out  of  nothing,  and  went  back  into 
nothing,  and  had  ties  only  with  one  another ;  still,  so  long  as  we 
are  what  we  are,  our  life  must  take  form  from  its  own  germ,  and 
grow  and  ramify  into  moral  commonwealths." 


416  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

After  showing  that  religion  is  in  no  sense  tlie  ground  of  mo- 
rality, and  that  it  is  not  the  only,  though  it  may  be  the  highest, 
sanction  of  it,  it  may  be  well  to  call  attention  to  certain  inci- 
dents in  which  they  are  closely  related.  Both  religion  and  mo- 
rality have  an  emotional  element.  This  emotional  element  is  the 
same  in  its  nature.  It  is  reverence  for  an  ideal.  The  diifereuce 
is  in  the  nature  of  the  object  to  which  the  reverence  is  directed. 
In  the  case  of  religion  it  is  the  person,  the  perfections,  and  the 
providence  of  a  Supreme  Being ;  in  the  case  of  morality  it  is 
either  the  moral  law  as  an  ideal  condition  of  \n\\,  or  it  is  an 
ideal  order  which  the  Avill  owes  it  to  itself  to  realize,  or  it  is  the 
ideal  man.  God  may  be  an  object  of  moral  as  Avell  as  religious 
reverence.  Not  so  with  man;  he  can  be  an  object  only ^ of 
moral,  but  not  of  religious,  reverence.  This  is  a  most  radical 
difference  between  them.  The  reverence  in  each  case  affects 
action.  But  religious  reverence  will  not  affect  moral  action  un- 
less the  individual  consciousness  has  connected  its  morality  with 
its  religion  as  an  element  in  the  total  of  its  mental  objects,  as 
is  generally  the  case  in  the  most  important  religions.  It  avails 
only  to  secure  adjustment  to  the  authority  and  j)ower  of  deity, 
and  unless  God  is  idealized  or  made  to  reflect  the  moral  charac- 
ter which  a  developed  consciousness  naturally  reveals  from  its 
very  constitution,  reverence  for  him  never  aficcts  the  moral  life. 
But  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  all  the  ethnic  religions  that  they  have 
in  some  way  permeated  the  whole  moral  life  of  their  devotees  in 
some  way.  This  may  have  been  from  their  power  to  invoke  the 
fear  of  men  or  to  invite  their  love  and  affections.  "Whatever 
the  motive  they  excite,  they  have  affected  the  customs  and  con- 
duct of  whole  nations.  This  is  simply  a  historical  fact  not  to  be 
disputed  and  shows  a  very  important  influence  upon  morality,  as 
that  defines  the  actual  habits  of  men.  But  while  the  sentiment 
of  reverence,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  conception  of  moral  per- 
Bonality  in  the  Divine  Being,  on  the  other,  unite  to  affiliate 
moral  and  religious  feelings,  the  material  objects  of  the  two  re- 
main entirely  distinct ;  that  is,  the  ends  which  they  are  designed 
to  serve.     At  the  same  time  the  coincidence  of  the  two  jirov- 


MORALITY  AXD  RELIGIOX  417 

inces  is  effected  l)y  the  tendency  of  religion  to  appropriate  every 
ideal  element  of  consciousness,  wliicli  it  has  a  right  to  do,  but  in 
doing  so  often  mistakes  the  appropriation  for  the  right  to  deter- 
mine or  condition  the  existence  of  morality. 

We  remarked  above  that  "in  their  essential  contents"  religion 
and  morality  are  independent  of  each  other,  while  the  admissions 
just  made  would  seem  to  make  them  interpenetrate  and  to  con- 
tain much  of  the  same  object  matter.  Both  views,  however,  are 
correct.  It  is  only  in  their  essential  and  distinctive  contents — 
that  is,  as  strictly  defined — that  they  are  independent  of  each 
other.  We  have  indicated  the  true  mark  by  which  religion  is  to 
be  recognized,  and  that  is  the  belief  and  worship  of  the  super- 
natural, which  is  not  any  part  of  morality,  though  this  may  be 
sanctioned  by  it.  But  it  is  the  characteristic  of  common  and  un- 
scientific thought,  not  to  use  the  term  "  religion "  in  its  strict 
meaning.  To  this,  religion  means,  besides  what  we  have  defined 
it,  almost  anything  else  covered  by  great  moral  earnestness,  or 
sanctioned  by  religious  authority.  From  the  very  fact  that 
religion  may  sanction  morality,  it  has  a  tendency  to  bring 
every  object  of  reverence  and  admiration  under  the  shelter  of  its 
wings.  The  emotions  of  the  two  fields  being  of  the  same  nature 
augments  this  tendency,  and  hence  the  objects  which  define  the 
field  of  morality,  such  as  personal  worth,  the  sense  of  duty,  pub- 
lic welfare,  and  all  the  social  and  moral  ideals,  such  as  veracity, 
justice,  honesty,  chastity,  benevolence,  etc.,  are  naturally  enough 
absorbed  by  the  religious  frame  of  mind.  But  they  are  no  part 
of  its  elements  as  a  religion,  defined  as  above.  If  they  are  to  be 
regarded  so,  it  must  be  on  the  ground  that  we  have  not  correctly 
defined  religion,  and  that  it  is  more  than  a  creed  and  a  cult  re- 
garding the  supernatural.  If  it  be  more' than  this  we  do  not  see 
how  it  can  be  defined  at  all  without  identifying  it  and  morality, 
which  would  prevent  it  from  being  either  the  ground  or  the 
sanction  of  morals,  and  contradict  all  human  experience  in  the 
fact  that  men  can  be  moral  without  being  religious.  This  could 
not  be  if  they  were  identical  in  their  contents.  Morality  may  be 
transfigured  and  rendered  nobler,  more  constant,  and  self-sacrific- 


418  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

iug  by  the  influence  of  religion.  This,  however,  is  not  because 
they  are  of  the  same  nature,  but  only  because  the  sentimcut  of 
reverence  and  the  moral  character  attrilnited  to  the  divine 
power  ruling  the  world  are  so  closely  identified  with  the  emo- 
tional element  of  morality  and  the  qualities  of  man  which  are  en- 
titled to  moral  reverence,  that  they  interpenetrate  with  morality 
and  absorb  as  incidental  contents  matters  which  are  not  essen- 
tial and  distinctive  features  of  religion  scientifically  defined. 
This  is  simply  to  say  that  the  emotional  elements  of  religion  and 
morality-  are  so  nearly  or  so  distinctly  the  same,  that  it  is  only 
natural  for  them  to  interjienetrate  in  some  of  their  connections, 
and  more  especially  since  both  huxe  jyersonalitij  as  an  object  and 
involve  a  cosmological  reference  in  the  determination  of  conduct. 
The  divine  is  regarded  as  the  sovereign  of  nature,  and  man  must 
adjust  himself  to  this  system,  and  hence,  whether  he  admits  a  per- 
sonal ruler  of  the  world  or  not,  his  conduct  must  be  the  same  in 
kind  and  character.  The  nature  and  worth  of  his  volitions  must 
remain  the  same  under  all  circumstances,  and  religion  can  only 
increase  the  sanctions  for  them.  It  does  not  condition  them  nor 
determine  their  worth.  It  adds  efficiency,  not  value,  to  them. 
Consequently,  notwithstanding  the  personal  and  cosmological  re- 
lations of  the  two  sets  of  phenomena,  in  the  intersection  of  their 
interests,  the  only  way  to  maintain  a  necessary  connection  be- 
tween them  is  to  stretch  the  meaning  of  religion  so  that  it  can 
denote  whatever  has  happened  historically  to  get  the  sanction  of 
religious  minds.  What  we  have  to  learn,  however,  is  the  great 
difference  between  religion  and  religious  minds.  The  former  is  a 
definite  and  definable  thing ;  the  latter,  beyond  the  distinctive 
element  wliich  makes  it  religious,  is  not  definable  at  all,  but  may 
include  anything  whatever  among  the  objects  of  its  revei'cnce. 
In  a  scientific  treatment  of  the  question  we  must  rely  upon  strict 
definition,  and  this  will  show  not  only  the  distinctness  of  the  two 
classes  of  iihenomena  in  all  but  their  psychological  and  subjec- 
tive elements,  but  also  the  prol)abHity  tliat  religion  could  secure 
its  survival  only  by  the  afterthought  of  connecting  itself  with 
morality,  a  view  which  is  amply  sustained  by  the  history  of  Circck 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  419 

intellectual  development,  and  by  the  superior  power  of  all  relig- 
ious which  have  been  fortunate  enough  to  ingraft  morality  upon 
them.  But  in  the  process  of  absorbing  morality  religion  has  run 
EAvay  from  its  original  object,  and  although  it  has  purified  itself 
in  doing  so,  it  can  give  an  efficacy  to  moral  law  which  that  seems 
not  to  possess  without  the  inspiration  of  religious  consciousness. 
The  relation  of  the  two,  therefore,  in  their  scientific  conception, 
seems  to  be  that  of  a  product  conjoining  religious  power  with 
moral  objects;  which  is  simply  to  say  that  the  distinctively  re- 
ligious element  is  not  the  condition  of  morality,  but  only  adds 
enthusiasm  and  efficacy  in  qualities  which  can  exist  independ- 
ently of  it. 

The  last  topic  confirms  this  general  conclusion  while  admit- 
ting a  close  connection  between  them.  But  it  shows  that  if  any 
relation  of  dependence  exists  at  all  it  is  the  reverse  of  what  the 
theologian  claims.  Religious  advocates  usually  tell  us  that 
there  can  be  no  morality  without  religion.  On  the  contrary, 
several  facts  show  that,  if  there  be  any  dependence  at  all,  moral- 
ity must  condition  religion,  at  least  in  all  those  characteristics 
which  affect  social  and  moral  life. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  seen  that  the  most  orthodox  de- 
fenders of  the  supremacy  of  religion  tell  us  that  morality  will 
not  save  a  man  from  perdition,  which,  as  observed,  admits  its 
possible  existence  without  religion.  But  the  same  persons  tell 
us  that  we  cannot  be  saved  without  morality,  which  is  to  partly 
condition  Redemption  upon  a  moral  life,  and  so  to  supplement 
its  deficiencies  by  adding  to  it  the  sanctifying  influences-  of  re- 
ligion, which  is  the  most  important  of  the  two  redemptive  agen- 
cies, as  maintained  by  its  defenders.  But  even  morality  is  not 
necessary  for  salvation,  as  judged  from  the  standpoint  of  death- 
bed repentances.  This  latter  theory  is  inconsistent  with  the  one 
just  stated,  though  it  has  seemed  necessary  in  order  to  retain  any 
argument  for  the  value  of  religion.  However,  not  to  persist  in 
emphasizing  this  weakness,  which  is  rather  logical  than  moral, 
because  the  healthy  moral  mind  revolts  against  so  extreme  a 
conception  of  the  problem,  we  would  remark  that  in  so  far  as 


420  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

religion  is  supposed  to  sui^plement  the  inadequacy  of  morality 
for  redemption  it  cannot  condition  it,  but  would  more  probably 
be  itself  conditioned  by  morality. 

Confirming  this  conclusion  is  a  second  fact  of  great  signifi- 
cance. It  is  that  the  moralization  of  human  consciousness  has 
preceded  the  conception  of  moral  personality  and  character  -in 
the  divine,  which  has  been  supposed  to  authorize  or  even  create 
morality.  If  anything  is  clear  in  the  history  of  religion  gener- 
ally, it  is  that  the  first  conception  of  God  w'as  that  of  mere 
power,  superior  or  omnipotent  power,  to  be  feared  and  propi- 
tiated, not  loved.  Greek  mythology  and  polytheism  reflect 
nothing  else,  and  even  its  monotheism  is  often  darkened  by  the 
shadows  from  the  earlier  and  mythological  view.  Indeed  the 
immense  power  of  skepticism  in  the  hands  of  the  Sophists  was 
due  to  the  utterly  immoral  character  of  the  gods  as  conceived  by 
the  uncritical  and  traditional  beliefs  of  Greece.  They  were  the 
embodiment  of  arbitrary  power,  and  religion  was  only  a  night- 
mare of  fear  and  propitiation  directed  to  satisfy  the  caprices  and 
cruelties  of  these  beings,  whose  character  after  all  was  but  the 
reflection  of  political  life,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  concep- 
tion of  physical  nature,  on  the  other.  But  wherever  moral  con- 
sciousness rose  above  the  notion  that  might  could  make  right, 
and  wherever  it  conceived  social  relations  as  involving  respect 
for  humanity,  it  began  at  once  to  idealize  the  divine  agencies 
which  had  been  placed  at  the  helm  of  the  universe,  and  religion 
was  purified  by  the  previous  realization  of  moral  conceptions. 
While  religion  as  a  mere  unintelligent  belief  in  divine  agency 
and  a  cult  of  propitiati(jn  might  and  did  exist  i)rior  to  moral 
consciousness  of  any  kind  that  affected  this  religion,  the  refined 
and  nol)ler  concci)tionb'  sheltered  by  modern  Christianity  were 
detcriuined  and  conditioned  ])y  the  higher  conception  of  moral- 
ity which  transfigured  it.  The  idealization  of  the  divine  was  a 
consequence  of  moral  consciousness,  not  a  condition  of  it.  As 
man's  moral  consciousness  developed  and  felt  more  and  more  the 
impulse  of  tiie  ideal  and  tlic  enthusiasm  of  humanity,  it  began 
to  reflect  its  attainment  in   the  conception  of  God.     The  old 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  421 

Greek  dramatists  and  moralists,  tlie  Hebrew  prophets,  aud  the 
founder  of  Christianity  transfigured  the  divine  by  changing  the 
conception  of  it  from  that  of  a  mere  sovereign  whose  wrath  was 
to  be  appeased  by  sacrifices  to  that  of  a  merciful  and  righteous 
power  benevolently  interested  in  the  welfare  of  man.  In  brief, 
the  character  of  the  divine,  which  is  an  object  of  worship  to  re- 
ligion, is  a  reflection  of  the  moral  development  of  the  age.  Re- 
ligion does  not  get  beyond  the  fear  of  power  when  morality  is 
nothing  but  the  reluctant  adjustment  to  forces  that  compel 
obedience,  but  do  not  invite  respect.  It  becomes  an  embodi- 
ment of  love  and  reverence  when  morality  has  been  sufiiciently 
developed  to  dispel  the  belief  and  respect  for  the  divine  unless  it 
can  reflect  the  ideal.  Hence  we  find  in  this  fact  a  proof  that 
moral  consciousness  conditions  the  religious,  as  it  appears  in  the 
concrete  religion  of  the  day.  It  may  not  condition  religion  as 
abstractly  defined,  but  it  does  condition  the  concrete  system  of 
beliefs  and  practices  which  go  by  that  name  in  current  usage, 
and  that  is  what  is  usually  meant  by  the  term.  Hence  theology 
seems  to  be  in  a  dilemma.  If  religion  be  strictly  defined  it 
either  wholly  separates  morality  from  itself  or  it  identifies  the 
two.  In  neither  case  can  it  be  a  condition  of  morality.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  religion  be  defined  in  concrete  terms  representing 
the  moralized  conception  of  the  divine  as  reflected  in  prevailing 
religious  views,  morality  or  moral  consciousness  is  a  condition 
of  religion,  and  not  the  reverse,  and  this  simply  because  the  his- 
tory of  religion  does  not  show  the  incorporation  of  morality 
among  its  sanctities  until  it  became  a  part  of  the  revelation  of 
consciousness  independent  of  that  religion. 

In  the  general  conclusion,  therefore,  taken  in  their  scientific 
definition,  religion  and  morality  are  independent  of  each  other, 
both  in  conception  and  contents.  But  taken  in  the  popular 
sense  where  religion  is  conceived  to  mean  anything  which  comes 
under  its  sanction,  the  two  fields  of  phenomena  intersect  and  in- 
terpenetrate ;  but  religion  is  not  a  condition  of  moralit}',  while 
the  latter  conditions  the  idealization  of  the  divine  as  a  product 
of  metaphysical  inquiry  into  the  explanation  of  nature.     Nor 


422  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

does  this  view  reflect  on  the  value  of  the  religious  consciousness. 
There  is  no  necessity  in  the  world's  economy  that  religion  should 
condition  morality.  On  the  contrary,  the  necessity  seems  the 
other  way.  Religion  is  properly  the  crown  and  flower  of  moral- 
ity, and  the  very  fact  that  it  is  this,  that  it  represents  the  high- 
est development  of  human  consciousness,  as  comprehending  ear- 
nestness and  reverence  toward  the  totality  of  a  man's  relations  to 
the  world  and  its  Maker,  the  last  and  mature  product  of  human 
reason,  establishes  its  dependence  for  purity  and  rationality 
upon  the  right  ordering  and  development  of  all  the  lower  func- 
tions which  it  takes  up  and  appropriates.  It  is  only  mistaking 
the  sanction  of  morality  for  the  condition  of  it  that  reverses  the 
true  order  of  conception.  But  it  is  a  false  honor  to  claim  for 
religion  a  consideration  which  puts  morality  at  the  mercy  of 
skepticism  in  theology,  and  casts  every  man  outside  the  fold  of 
righteousness  who  cannot  agree  with  us  in  religious  mattei^s. 
The  moral  interests  of  the  world  require  harmony  instead  of  dis- 
sension, and  this  can  be  obtained  by  uniting  on  the  certainties 
of  moral  consciousness  instead  of  resorting  to  the  old  methods  of 
authority  and  appealing  to  conceptions  whose  validity  is  still  in 
court. 

AVe  may  summarize  the  complex  relations  which  we  have  con- 
sidered between  religion  and  morality,  and  in  this  way  obtain  a 
more  comprehensive  view  of  them,  (a)  The  object  of  religion  is 
the  supernatural,  that  of  morality  is  human  welfare  and  con- 
formity to  the  sense  of  duty,  (h)  Religion  is  not  the  ground, 
but  the  sanction,  of  morality,  and  is,  moreover,  not  the  only  sanc- 
tion of  it.  (c)  The  psychological  or  subjective  elements  of  relig- 
ion and  morality  are  the  same  or  closely  related,  but  the  objec- 
tive elements  are  diflerent.  {d)  The  two  fields  of  phenomena 
intersect  und  interpenetrate,  but  only  in  the  popular  and  con- 
crete use  of  the  term  religion,  (j:)  The  ideal  character  of  the 
divine  is  a  reflection  of  a  previously  developed  moral  conscious- 
ness, and  not  the  reverse.  All  these  show  that  the  problem  of 
the  relation  between  religion  and  morality  is  a  very  complicated 
one,  and  requires  a  method  for  its  solution  quite  different  from 


MORALITY  AXD  RELIGION.  423 

the  usual  procedure.  AVe  ouly  trust  that  iu  attempting  it  we 
have  met  with  at  least  a  measure  of  success,  aud  at  tlie  same 
time  have  committed  no  offense  against  the  sanctities  of  the 
question. 

References. — Martineau :  Study  of  Religion,  Vol.  L,  Introduction ;  Types 
of  Ethical  Theory,  Vol.  II.,  Book  I.,  Chapter  VI.,  |  9  ;  Essays,  Reviews  and 
Addresses,  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  293-317  ;  Mackenzie :  Manual  of  Ethics,  Chap- 
ter XVII.,  pp.  302-320;  Stuckenberg:  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Plii- 
losophy,  Chapter  IX.,  especially  p.  342;  Fiske:  Cosmic  Philosoijhy,  ^'ol. 
II.,  pp.  357,  465  ;  Smyth  :  Christian  Ethics,  Introduction,  more  especially 
pp.  13-26 ;  Fowler  and  "Wilson :  Principles  of  Morals,  Vol.  II.,  Chapter 
X. ;  Martensen :  Christian  Ethics  (General),  Introduction,  especially  pp. 
13-22;  Wundt:  Ethik,  Erster  Abschuitt,  Zweites  Capitel,  pp.  33-84; 
Janet:  Theory  of  Morals,  Chapter  XII.;  Dorner:  Christian  Ethics,  pp. 
134-141,  and  Introduction  ;  Pollock :  Essays  iu  Jurisprudence  and  Ethics, 
Chapter  XL  ;  Schurman :  Belief  in  God,  Lecture  III.  ;  Barratt :  Physical 
Ethics,  pp.  3S0-387;  Caird:  The  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant,  Vol.  II., 
Book  IV.,  Conclusion;  Knight:  Christian  Ethic;  Gizycki:  Moral  Phi- 
losophie,  pp.  329-495  ;  Translation  by  Coit,  pp.  208-276 ;  Bowne  :  Prin- 
ciples of  Ethics,  Chapter  VII. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES. 

I.  IXTRODUCTOBY— The  doctrine  of  rights  and  duties  has 
some  complications  Avhich  require  careful  consideration.  In 
some  connections  the  two  conceptions  seem  to  be  dependent  on 
each  other,  and  in  other  instances  they  seem  to  be  wholly  unre- 
lated. On  the  one  hand,  wherever  a  duty  exists,  a  right  seems 
to  be  involved.  This,  of  course,  means  that  an  individual  duty 
involves  the  right  of  the  person  to  freedom  of  conscience  and 
action  in  that  particular.  On  the  other  hand,  a  right  is  often 
claimed  for  actions  which  do  not  involve  duties  of  any  kind,  ex- 
cept in  other  persons  than  those  who  have  the  right  in  the  case. 
Then  again  my  rights  determine  others'  duties  toward  me,  but 
they  may  have  duties  toward  me  which  do  not  affect  any  rights 
in  me  or  add  to  them.  This  is  a  complication  which  it  is  well 
worth  while  to  carefully  analyze  and  explain. 

Man  is  said  to  be  the  subject  of  both  rights  and  duties,  and 
the  problem  of  theoretical  Ethics  is  to  ascertain  whether  one  de- 
termines the  other  and  which  does  so,  or  whether  both  of  them 
may  not  have  a  common  ground  upon  which  to  rest.  Some 
writers,  as  Trendelenburg,  condition  all  rights  upon  moral  prin- 
ciples or  duties  ;  others  condition  duties  upon  rights,  and  so 
seem  to  condition  morality  upon  data  which  are  purely  optional 
with  the  human  will.  This  is  because  the  term  "  rights  "  often 
expresses  i)rivilcgc's  whose  enjoyment  does  not  seem  to  involve 
morality,  l)ut  only  ethically  indifferent  conduct.  Thus  a  man 
nuiy  be  said  to  iiave  the  right  to  take  a  bath,  to  laugh  at  a  joke, 
U)  1:^1  k  to  his  neiglibors,  to  look  out  of  his  window,  to  live  on  a 
vegetable  diet,  etc.,  but  not  to  be  unconditionally  obliged  to  per- 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  425 

form  any  of  these  acts.  By  supposition  in  these  cases  there  is  no 
duty  to  act,  but  only  the  liberty  to  act  or  not,  as  we  please.  The 
right,  however,  carries  with  it  the  duty  of  others  to  respect  it, 
although  the  right  does  not  originate  presumably  in  any  duty  of 
the  subject.  If  duty  were  thus  limited  to  the  correlation  with 
rights  it  would  have  nothing  more  than  a  social  meaning  and 
eontent,  and  so  not  apply  outside  of  social  relations.  But  the 
main  problem  suggested  by  the  fact  is  the  question  whether 
duties  are  always  relative  and  whether  rights  are  founded  upon 
morality  in  its  last  analysis,  or  whether  they  depend  upon  what 
is  implied  in  the  idea  of  personality.  We  are  in  the  habit  of 
regarding  duty  as  absolute,  at  least  in  its  application  to  the  high- 
est good.  But  if  it  be  only  relative  to  the  existence  of  rights, 
and  these  represent  only  optional  conditions,  duty  seems  to  have 
no  other  foundation  than  an  alterable  set  of  circumstances,  and 
may  be  evaded  by  abandoning  the  claim  to  rights,  unless  we  can 
find  a  basis  for  these  which  is  not  optional.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  the  question  whether  "  rights  "  express  merely  an  immu- 
nity against  the  interference  of  others,  which  would  give  both 
rights  and  duties  nothing  but  a  social  content,  so  that  the  indi- 
vidual apart  from  his  social  conditions  would  be  exempt  from 
the  obligations  to  morality.  On  account  of  the  complexities  in- 
volved in  these  questions  it  is  important  to  examine  the  nature 
and  kinds  of  both  rights  and  duties,  with  the  implications  they 
contain  and  the  full  contents  of  their  meaning. 

II  XATURE  OF  RIGHTS.— The  most  important  general  ob- 
servation to  be  made  about  "  rights  "  is  the  fact  that  we  are  not 
here  dealing  with  a  property  of  actions,  but  of  persons.  We 
have  already  seen  that  "  right  "  can  be  taken  to  describe  the 
moral  quality  of  conduct  and  denotes  either  its  correctness  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  or  its  intrinsic  worth  and  claim  to  approbation, 
wrong  denoting  the  opposite.  But  as  here  considered,  in  the 
plural,  or  spoken  of  as  "  a  right,"  the  term  denotes  nothing  of 
the  kind.  We  have  to  speak  and  think  of  rights  as  belonging 
to  persons  and  as  describing  certain  immunities  possessed  by 
them. 


426  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

1st.  Definition. — The  shortest  defiuition  of  a  right  would  be 
that  it  is  a  claim  to  the  forbearance  and  protection  of  others  in 
certain  specific  cases.  Another  account  would  make  it  express 
a  privilege  which  exempts  the  subject  from  blame  or  censure  in  the 
exercise  of  it.  The  latter  view  is  probably  more  comprehensive 
than  the  former,  which  implies  at  least  the  social  conditions  deter- 
mining the  "  right."  But  in  order  to  be  more  clear  and  definite 
we  shall  call  the  former  social  and  the  latter  individual  or  moral 
rights.  The  difference  between  them  is  that  the  violation  of 
social  duties  is  punishable,  of  individual  or  moral  duties,  censur- 
able. The  social  right  is  a  claim  against  violence ;  a  moral 
right  is  a  claim  against  reproach.  Both,  of  course,  represent 
what  is  censurable,  but  the  evasion  of  the  latter  duties  is  only 
censurable,  while  that  of  social  rights  is  more.  In  both  senses, 
however,  rights  only  express  that  which  the  agent  is  at  liberty  to 
pursue,  and  which  others  must  respect.  But  in  all  cases  it  indi- 
cates a  defensible  claim  against  aggression,  interference,  or  re- 
straint. This  claim  is  wholly  for  liberty  of  action,  or  of  control- 
ling possessions.  Where  a  right  is  denied,  we  prohibit,  either 
legally  or  morally,  the  actions  which  would  be  protected  by  it. 
Hence  the  idea  practically  resolves  itself  into  a  legitimate  de- 
mand for  freedom  or  liberty  of  action,  which  implies  the  duty 
of  others  to  respect  it.  Its  full  meaning,  however,  can  be  de- 
termined only  by  an  examination  of  its  limitations  and  its 
correlates. 

2d.  Limitations  of  Rights. — Eights  cannot  be  predicated  of 
man  without  certain  limitations.  If  they  could,  they  would 
mean  unrestricted  liberty,  sanctified  by  all  the  sacreducss  which 
attaches  to  both  conceptions.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  welfare 
of  both  the  individual  and  of  society  requires  very  decided  re- 
Ktrictions  upon  individual  liberty,  and  so  upon  individual  rights. 
This  doctrine  requires  assertion  because  of  the  ambiguity  latent 
in  the  term  "  rights,"  which  is  often  taken  to  'un\)\y  the  legiii- 
vianj  of  an  act,  a.s  well  as  the  libcrfij  to  perform  it,  nothing  being 
inii)lied  as  to  its  character  in  the  latter  case.  This  sacreduess 
attaching  to  it  is  too  often  assumed  to  imply  that  rights  are  un- 


THEORY  OF  EIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  427 

limited  and  unconditional.  But  this  can  easily  be  shown  to  be 
wholly'  false.     The  conception  has  most  decided  limitations. 

1.  Man  has  no  Eights  in  Relation  to  iSTature. — Nature 
here  represents  the  physical  and  external  world,  or  all  imper- 
sonal forces  whatsoever.  Against  them  man  has  no  rights,  but 
only  powers.  Between  man  and  nature  it  is  simply  and  only  a 
struggle  for  supremacy ;  it  is  a  contest  between  two  powers  or 
forces,  in  which  the  stronger  must  prevail ;  and  if  man  be  the 
weaker  and  is  crowded  to  the  wall  he  cannot  assert  any  charges  of 
injustice,  nor  if  the  stronger  and  successful,  can  he  claim  that  his 
victory  is  a  triumph  of  justice.  If  man  has  any  rights  at  all, 
therefore,  they  must  be  determined  by  some  other  fact  than  a  rela- 
tion to  impersonal  forces.  This  is  clear  by  making  the  attempt 
to  imagine  a  man  as  having  rights  in  a  state  of  solitude. 
Placed  face  to  face  with  nature  alone  he  can  have  no  rights  for 
the  simple  reason  that  rights  imply  a  duty  on  the  part  of  others 
to  respect  them,  and  nature  cannot  be  charged  with  any  duties. 
Only  personal  agents  can  have  duties;  impersonal  forces  can 
only  have  powers.  Rights  are  purely  relative,  and  hence  are 
limited  to  the  sphere  of  social  and  moral  conditions.  They  are 
not  an  attribute  of  man  conceived  as  an  individual  being,  but 
only  of  his  social  relations.  If,  then,  he  can  be  said  to  have 
duties  independently  of  his  social  relations,  in  its  last  analysis 
duty  and  morality  are  not  determined  by  rights.  But  not  to  an- 
ticipate, the  fact  that  he  has  no  rights  in  relation  to  nature 
shows  that  the  claim  to  them  is  limited  and  that  they  are  not  a 
possession  of  him  as  an  individual,  but  only  as  a  member  of  a 
social  organism,  as  one  among  equals. 

We  do,  nevertheless,  often  speak  of  a  man  as  having  a  right 
to  perform  a  certain  act  when  he  seems  to  be  related  only  to 
nature.  Thus  a  man  has  a  "  right  "  to  look  at  the  stars,  to  eat 
food,  to  hunt  game,  to  take  exercise,  etc.,  even  in  a  solitary 
state  when  a  social  organism  docs  not  exist,  or  when  others  can- 
not make  any  claims  upon  his  forbearance  or  assistance.  This 
conception  has  been  alluded  to  before  and  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
most  comprehensive  use  of  the  term.     It  denotes,  not  so  much  a 


428  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

claim  against  the  will  of  others  as  exemption  from  censure  or 
reproach  for  one's  course  of  action,  or  exemption  from  the  in- 
cumbency of  obligation.  This  same  notion  holds  of  the  term  as 
expressing  a  claim  against  legitimate  interference  from  others. 
But  in  spite  of  this  common  characteristic  such  a  right  is  not 
determined  by  the  man's  relation  to  nature,  but  solely  by  the 
exemption  from  duty  which  possesses  a  resemblance  to  exemp- 
tion from  the  legitimate  interference  of  others.  In  the  broadest 
sense  of  the  term,  "rights"  express  liberty.  But  it  is,  on  the 
one  hand,  liberty  from  social  restraint,  and  on  the  other  liberty 
or  exemption  from  moral  censure.  The  difference,  however,  is 
not  in  favor  of  man's  having  rights  in  relation  to  nature.  It. is 
only  transferring  a  conception  of  social  limitations  over  to  the 
relation  between  a  man  and  his  own  conscience,  so  that  where 
duty  is  not  biudhig  the  man  can  possess  the  same  liberty  of 
action  as  he  possesses  when  others  can  make  no  claims  upon  his 
sacrifices.  Hence  it  is  not  the  relation  to  nature  that  determines 
these  rights,  so  that  the  dictum  announcing  the  limitations  of 
rights  to  social  and  moral  conditions  still  holds  true. 

2.  Rights  are  Limited  by  Reciprocity. — This  is  a  most 
important  restriction  upon  the  claim  to  rights.  It  is  embodied 
in  the  modern  practice  and  institutions  of  social  life,  and  is 
expressed  as  an  axiom  that  no  man  can  claim  that  which  he 
would  not  grant  to  another  under  the  same  conditions.  A  man 
cannot  claim  the  right  or  privilege  to  do  injury  to  others  without 
granting  to  them  the  same  immunity.  If  this  claim  ever  be 
advanced  in  favor  of  one  and  not  of  another,  it  must  reduce 
social  organization  to  chaos.  It  would  be  tantamount  to  a 
declaration  of  social  inequality,  and  place  all  but  the  incumbent 
under  restraints  which  would  not  be  endured.  Moreover,  one 
man  cannot  claim,  in  the  nature  of  things,  more  than  he  will 
concede  to  others  under  like  circumstances,  without  endanger- 
ing his  own  claim.  Again,  the  reason  for  claiming  a  right  will 
be  the  same  in  all  normally  and  rationally  constituted  persons, 
and  hence  if  legitimate  in  one  instance  will  be  legitimate  in  all 
such.     Consequently  the  admission  of  riglits  in  one  involves  that 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  429 

of  equal  rights  with  the  others.  INIoreover,  where  one  man  has  a 
right,  the  fact  exckides  the  right  of  others  to  infringe  it,  so  that 
the  formula  for  the  limitation  of  rights  will  be  that  a  claim  to 
rights  must  C07isid  with  the  equal  rights  of  all  others,  conditions 
being  the  same.  This  principle  imposes  very  distinct  limitations 
upon  free  action,  by  requiring  the  suppression  of  all  claims  that 
conflict  with  social  welfare  and  the  conformity  of  the  individual 
will  to  this  end.  The  strict  application  of  this  principle  in  social 
life  assumes  that  all  men  are  equal,  and  hence  the  doctrine  that 
all  men  have  equal  rights.  In  practice,  however,  the  principle 
requires  qualification  to  suit  the  various  conditions  and  charac- 
ters of  men.  But  wherever  men  are  equal  in  endowments  and 
disposition,  they  have  equal  rights,  so  that  the  only  limitation 
which  they  can  possess  under  these  conditions  is  that  of  the  same 
rights  in  others.  The  individual  is  subordinated  to  the  whole, 
or  each  person  is  required  to  adjust  his  claims  to  freedom  of 
conduct  to  those  conditions  in  which  he  must  surrender  all 
superiority  and  advantage  over  others,  his  equals.  If  men  are 
unequal  the  case  is  different. 

3.  Rights  are  Limited  by  the  Degree  of  Responsi- 
bility.— If  all  men  were  equal  in  their  endowments,  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral,  their  responsibility  would  be  the  same 
and  the  abstract  principle  announced  in  the  preceding  section 
would  be  applied  without  qualification.  But  men  are  not  con- 
stituted equal.  They  vary  in  their  several  characteristics,  and 
more  particularly  in  the  intellectual  and  moral.  The  latter 
especially  affect  their  responsibility,  as  we  have  already  seen  in 
a  previous  chapter.  Their  rights  must  be  modified  in  the  same 
proportion.  Perfect  freedom  of  action  can  be  accorded  to  the 
intellectually  and  morally  sane,  but  must  be  restricted  in  the 
defective  classes.  This  principle  is  applied  to  the  criminal,  the 
pauper,  the  imbecile,  and  the  insane,  and  with  a  less,  degree  to 
children.  The  fact  is,  of  course,  a  mere  truism.  But  it  is 
referred  to  in  order  to  show  that  rights  are  not  absolute  posses- 
sions, but  are  subordinated  to  some  other  fact  in  man's  moral 
nature.     This  limitation  requires  that  they  be  deduced  or  deter- 


430  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

mined  from  the  principle  upon  which  they  depend,  or  by  which 
they  are  conditioned. 

3d.  Correlatives  of  Rights — It  has  been  established  that 
rights  are  purely  relative  to  the  claims  of  others  upon  us,  or  to 
the  sphere  of  indifferent  actions  affecting  the  welfare  of  ourselves 
and  others.  This  implies  that  they  have  an  object  which  may 
be  called  their  correlative.  A  correlative  is  that  which  is  im- 
plied or  implicitly  expressed  in  a  given  datum.  Eights  involve 
this  and  derive  their  whole  meaning  from  it.  They  may  be 
summarized  as  follows,  as  they  define  the  sphere  of  conduct. 

1.  Social  Conditions  and  Duties. — We  have  seen  that  a 
man  does  not  strictly  possess  rights  in  a  state  of  isolation  or  soli- 
tude, but  only  when  he  is  placed  in  a  moral  relation  to  his  fel- 
lows having  duties  to  him.  Hence  duty  is  the  correlative  of 
rights.  This  conception  is  expressible  by  the  formula  that  the 
rights  of  A  involve  the  correlative  duty  of  B  to  respect  them. 
A  social  order  is  the  recognition  of  this  fact.  But  it  is  not  nec- 
essary that  society  be  definitely  organized  before  these  rights  and 
duties  come  into  existence.  All  that  is  required  is  a  relation 
between  persons  expressed  by  a  common  nature,  a  conmion  rela- 
tion to  the  world,  common  ends,  and  competition  for  the  means 
of  subsistence.  Eights  may  exist  even  before  the  social  organism 
has  been  formed,  though  they  may  not  be  enforced.  Moreover, 
the  converse  is  also  true  ;  namely,  that  the  existence  of  society 
or  of  social  relations  necessarily  involves  the  existence  of  rights 
and  duties.  In  these  cases  we  Jtre  justified  in  supi)osing  that 
duties  are  determined  by  rights,  and  within  the  sphere  expressed 
l)y  them  would  not  exist  but  for  those  rights.  This  sphere  is 
that  of  justice,  which  is  still  to  be  considered.  For  instance,  the 
duty  to  respect  property,  to  avoid  theft,  is  detorniined  wholly  by 
the  pre\'ious  existence  of  the  right  to  property.  In  fact  a  viola- 
tion of  property  claims  would  be  impossible  until  the  right  was 
admitted.  Hence  such  duties  have  no  existence  except  under 
the  condition  of  existing  rights.  If  all  duties  are  such  as  these, 
they  have  only  a  wc.ial  and  not  a  jxr.^oiial  or  private  object. 

The  principle  thus  determined  can  be  expressed  in  the  for- 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  431 

mula :  the  rights  of  the  subject  imply  the  correlate  duty  in  the  object 
when  that  is  a  person,  and  now  the  question  remains  whether  the 
rights  of  the  subject  imply  any  correlative  duties  in  himself. 
They  do  not,  except  as  they  imply  equal  rights  in  others,  and  thus 
involve  their  correlates.  Duties  in  the  subject  may  imply  rights, 
but  rights  will  not  imply  his  duties.  Animals  and  irrational 
beings  are  supposed  to  have  rights,  but  not  duties.  On  the 
other  hand,  wherever  duties  are  supposed  to  exist  in  rational  be- 
ings, they  determine  rights  against  foreign  infringement.  This 
means  that  liberty  must  always  be  subordinated  to  duty.  In- 
different actions,  or  such  as  are  claimed  to  be  indifferent,  must 
be  made  to  yield  to  the  demands  of  moral  law,  and  hence  duty 
is  superior  to  rights  and  not  the  correlate  of  them  in  the  sub- 
ject. 

2.  The  Appeal  to  Foece  in  their  Defense. — The  exist- 
ence of  a  right  justifies  the  use  of  force  to  maintain  it.  If  such 
force  could  not  be  exerted,  the  right  would  be  practically  nuga- 
tory. The  use  of  force  against  another  must  always  be  regarded 
as  an  injury  unless  it  is  in  defense  of  a  right,  and  unless,  when  a 
right  is  conceded,  we  admit  the  legitimacy  of  an  appeal  to  force 
in  its  defense,  the  right  can  only  be  claimed,  but  not  made  effec- 
tive. Government  is  founded  upon  this  postulate,  and  public 
opinion  operates  to  substitute  reason  for  that  appeal.  But  when 
it  fails,  and  when  the  interests  of  society  are  great  enough  to  de- 
mand it,  force  must  step  in  to  accomplish  what  reason  and  pub- 
lic opinion  fail  to  do.  Rights  are  sacred,  more  sacred  than  the 
use  of  force  is  objectionable,  and  this  because  they  are  compli- 
cated with  a  system  of  duties  which  command  the  highest  attain- 
ments possible  in  the  individual.  Hence  in  order  to  maintain 
them  the  employment  of  force  must  be  the  correlative  of  their  ex- 
istence. On  any  other  terms  the  use  of  force  is  an  evil  to  be  re- 
pressed. 

4th.  Divisions  of  Rights. — Rights  are  divided  into  two  great 
classes,  Xatural  or  Personal,  and  Acquired  or  Political  riglits, 
according  as  they  represent  conditious  fixed  by  nature,  or  condi- 
tions determined  by  society.     Natural  rights  are  those  possessed 


432 


ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 


against  others,  and  acquired  rights  are  those  obtained  from  others. 
The  former  has  fewer  limitations  than  the  latter,  depending  less 
upon  the  degree  of  responsibility  possessed  than  upon  the  organic 
nature  of  the  subject.  They  might  also  be  called  individual  in 
contrast  with  social  rights.  But  probably  the  terms  adopted 
are  better.  By  natural  rights,  however,  we  do  not  mean  any- 
thing like  the  doctrine  of  Rousseau  and  the  eighteenth-century 
philosophers  who  talked  so  effectively  about "  the  rights  of  man  " 
and  "natural  rights."  These  writers  were  individualists,  pure 
and  simple,  and  maintained  that  rights  were  endowments  belong- 
ing to  man  by  nature  and  not  a  mere  expression  of  what  was 
implied  in  his  social  relations.  But  by  natural  rights  we  mean 
here  nothing  more  than  claims  upon  others,  which  are  conferred 
by  nature,  if  you  like,  but  are  wholly  the  product  of  social  con- 
ditions and  must  vanish  with  them.  They  are  called  "natural" 
because  they  are  not  conferred  by  convention  or  legislation,  but 
arise  from  relations  which  exist  independently  of  the  conven- 
tional relations  of  society.  They  are  natural  in  the  sense  that 
they  are  not  conferrable  by  law,  but  exist  by  virtue  of  the  indi- 
vidual's relation  to  his  own  nature  and  actions.  The  acquired 
rights  are  conferred  by  social  action  on  the  ground  of  certain 
qualifications.  They  are  more  distinctly  subordinated  to  the 
will  and  wants  of  public  welfare.  The  following  is  a  tabular 
view  of  rights,  without  distinction  between  social  and  individual 
or  moral : 


2 


Natural 
(Personal) 


Acquired 
(Political) 


Personal  Existence  =  Life  {  PT-SIS" "'"• 

Labor. 

enjoyment,  etc. 
Material     Products  = 
Wealth. 
Intellectual  Produ(ts  = 
Kuowlodgc. 
Moral  Products  =  Char- 
acter. 

Natural  Property  =  Natural  Resources  or  Land=:A 
Trust. 

Elective  Franchise  =  Sovereign  Powers. 
Public  Oflice  ^  Representative  Powers. 


f  I  a 
Personal  Activity  =  Liberty  <  y 


Personal  Property  =  Prod- 
ucts of  Will 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  433 

This  classification  may  not  be  exhaustive  in  regard  to  partic- 
ular rights,  but  it  contains  them  by  implication.  The  right  to 
justice,  for  instance,  will  be  included  in  the  various  rights  to 
security,  wealth,  knowledge,  character,  and  liberty,  they  being 
forms  in  which  it  is  realized.  Indeed,  we  might  even  summa- 
rize all  natural  rights  in  the  conception  of  justice,  but  it  is  best 
to  differentiate  them  in  the  manner  represented  by  the  table. 
We  may  now  consider  each  class  by  itself. 

1.  Katural  Rights. — By  natural  rights  we  mean  those 
which  are  detei~viined  by  the  constitution  of  the  subject,  its  neces- 
sary demands,  and  their  relation  to  others.  Man  is  an  organic 
whole  consisting  of  physical  and  mental  characteristics,  each  of 
which  demand  certain  supplies  of  energy  in  their  support  and 
development.  His  appetites  and  capacities  seeking  for  develop- 
ment are  impulses  which  are  not  of  his  own  making,  and  in 
order  to  maintain  his  own  self-preservation  and  to  accomplish 
the  end  of  his  existence  he  must  be  granted  the  opportunity  to 
meet  his  necessary  wants.  They  are  not  of  his  own  creation. 
His  duties  lie  in  the  direction  of  perfecting  himself,  not  to  say 
anything  of  the  interest  to  do  so,  which  is  the  same  in  all  persons. 
Hence  with  a  nature  and  wants  not  of  his  own  making  and  a 
demand  for  self-realization,  he  can  claim  from  others  the  recog- 
nition of  powers  and  liberty  which  he  accords  to  them.  This 
claim  is  his  right  by  nature,  not  a  right  against  nature  and  in 
relation  to  the  physical  world  alone,  but  a  right  fixed  by  his  own 
nature  in  relation  to  his  equals.  For  instance,  the  right  to  per- 
sonal existence  is  determined  by  the  demands  of  dut}'^  and  inter- 
est upon  self-protection.  Were  his  personal  existence  indestruc- 
tible he  would  have  no  right  to  preserve  it,  because  there  would 
be  no  possibility  of  annihilating  it.  A  right  is  the  privilege  of 
defense  against  injury  and  of  liberty  in  action  ;  or  we  might  say 
that  it  is  an  indispensable  means  to  the  maintenance  of  an  end 
which  cannot  produce  itself.  Hence,  wherever  man's  nature 
makes  it  necessary  to  do  certain  acts  protecting  his  physical  and 
moral  integrity,  he  will  have  a  claim  upon  the  respect  and  toler- 
ation of  others  to  the  extent  of  granting  equal  rights  to  them. 


434  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

TIiov  are  all  claims  against  interference  or  censure  from  others, 
wth  the  limitations  already  discussed.  But  there  is  one  impor- 
tant limitation  still  to  be  considered.  It  is  the  forfeiture  of  a 
right  by  the  violation  of  it  in  others.  Rights  are  not  so  absolute, 
even  if  they  are  natural,  that  they  cannot  be  forfeited.  They 
are  all  forfeitable  when  they  are  claimed  or  usurped  against  the 
equal  rights  of  others.  Hence  they  are  not  so  sacred  as  the 
object  for  which  man  exists  and  are  wholly  subordinated  to  it. 
They  exist  as  consequences  of  man's  nature,  and  must  harmonize 
with  the  ultimate  object  of  that  nature,  though  they  are  socially 
determined  as  we  have  already  shown.  Each  of  them  may  be 
considered  briefly,  with  the  particular  principle  upon  which  it 
depends. 

(r/)  The  Rigid  to  Personal  Existence  or  Self-preservation. — It 
is  clear  that  this  is  not  a  right  against  nature,  because  no  man 
has  the  power  to  maintain  it,  except  for  a  time.  But  it  is  de- 
termined negatively  by  the  consideration  that  if  it  is  not 
granted,  social  order  is  impossible,  AYe  have  to  choose  between 
social  order  and  denying  the  right  of  self-preservation.  As  long 
as  the  former  is  a  desirable  object,  not  to  say  anything  of  the 
continuance  of  the  sj^ecies,  the  right  of  self-preservation  must  be 
conceded  as  a  condition  of  its  attainment.  The  positive  defense 
of  the  right  is  the  duty  to  realize  the  best  possible  objects  with- 
in the  reach  of  the  will,  assuming,  of  course,  that  there  are 
duties  of  any  kind.  It  is  a  right,  how'cver,  too  generally  ad- 
mitted and  too  well  fortified  by  the  necessities  of  life  to  require 
any  fuller  justification.  This  is  not  so  true  of  the  next  two 
rights. 

(b)  The  Right  to  Personal  Activity  or  Liberty. — This  right  is 
a  corollary  of  the  first.  Self-preservation  and  the  attainment  of 
the  objects  of  life  require  such  immunity  in  conduct  as  will 
make  them  possible.  The  imposition  of  unfair  restrictions  upon 
the  will  must  defeat  them,  and  hence  that  liberty  must  be  guar- 
anteed which  will  enable  the  subject  to  pursue  the  higluvst  aims 
of  life,  be  they  happiness,  j)erfection,  or  other  ends.  This  will 
be  a  condition  both  of  his  doiujr  it  and  of  bciiijir  virtuous  out  of 


THEORY  OF  EIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES  -135 

his  own  volition.  The  only  limitation  is  the  equal  rights  of 
others  and  the  duties  of  the  subject.  Its  sphere  is  all  moral  and 
indifferent  actions,  individual  and  social.  Man  has  some  end  to 
realize  whether  it  be  obligatory  or  indifferent.  In  case  it  is 
obligatory,  nothing  can  be  clearer  than  his  right  to  pursue  it 
untrammeled  by  foreign  infringement.  He  has  faculties  ad- 
justed to  certain  desirable  or  imperative  ends,  and  hence  it  is 
either  his  duty  or  his  interest  to  exercise  them.  That  it  is  his 
duty  to  exercise  them  is  apparent*  from  the  fact  that  what  we 
call  punishment  or  evil  consequences  attach  to  the  neglect  of 
that  exercise.  "But  the  fulfillment  of  this  duty  (or  interest) 
necessarily  presupposes  freedom  of  action.  Man  cannot  exercise 
his  faculties  without  certain  scope.  He  must  have  liberty  to  go 
and  to  come,  to  see,  to  feel,  to  speak,  to  work ;  to  get  food, 
raiment,  shelter,  and  to  provide  for  each  and  all  of  the  needs  of 
his  nature."  His  right,  therefore,  is  only  a  legitimate  claim 
upon  others'  forbearance  and  protection,  provided  he  accords 
the  same  to  them. 

Aside  from  this  general  deduction  of  liberty  as  an  abstract 
right  there  are  other  considerations  that  enhance  its  value  and 
justify  its  protection.  Among  the  most  important  is  the  fact 
that,  with  due  prevention  of  crime,  endowment  of  jDersoual  lib- 
erty not  only  insures  better  moral  character  when  attained  at 
all,  and  even  conditions  it,  but  it  also  opens  the  way  to  a  larger 
voluntary  supply  of  the  world's  wants  in  goods.  Every  man 
works  harder,  produces  more,  and  is  more  content  when  his 
activity  is  free  and  'voluntary.  A  labor  of  love  always  effects 
more  than  one  of  drudgery,  and  hence  apart  from  its  abstract 
necessity  for  the  sake  of  consistency  it  comes  to  us  justified  by 
expediency.  It  supplies  the  largest  possible  amount  of  human 
wants  whether  they  be  expressed  in  terms  of  happiness,  perfec- 
tion, or  material  wealth.  It  is  the  best  condition  for  meeting 
the  demands  of  natural  selection  and  dire'ctiug  the  natural  in- 
clinations in  the  channel  in  which  they  will  be  most  useful  and 
productive.  Hence  it  applies  with  equal  force  to  every  form,  of 
activity,   physical,    intellectual,    and    moral.      Its    coroUaries, 


436  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

therefore,  are  freedom  of  labor,  freedom  of  avocation  or  employ- 
ment, freedom  of  trade,  freedom  of  opinion,  freedom  of  con- 
science. All  these  have  vindicated  themselves  by  the  results 
of  experience,  though  they  have  been  of  slow  growth.  They 
mark  the  efforts  to  secure  justice  and  equality  and  are  condi- 
tions of  them,  assuming  the  proper  circumstances. 

But  there  are  limitations  to  the  granting  of  the  right  to  lib- 
erty which  are  distinct  from  the  equal  rights  of  others.  This 
latter  is  a  formula  which  applies  strictly  to  a  world  in  which  all 
are  equal  in  powers,  desires,  and  character.  But  the  fact  is  that 
we  find  very  great  inequalities  in  men.  They  are  unequal  in 
their  physical,  mental,  and  moral  endowments.  They  are  par- 
ticularly unequal  in  moral  character,  which  makes  the  couferal 
of  liberty  upon  them  dangerous.  Consequently  there  is  no 
definite  criterion  of  the  amount  of  liberty  Avhich  it  is  safe  to 
confer,  except  what  the  degree  of  power,  culture,  and  morality 
may  justify.  The  right,  therefore,  has  degrees,  or  must  be  de- 
termined by  the  probabilities  of  its  use  or  abuse.  It  is  forfeit- 
able as  are  all  others,  and  requires  certain  stages  of  individual 
perfection  and  social  development  to  secure  it  against  easy  for- 
feiture. Criminals  and  the  insane  are  illustrations  of  its  for- 
feiture, the  one  for  moral  and  the  other  for  natural  defects. 
But  besides  forfeiture  for  defects,  it  may  be  limited  by  age  and 
education,  even  when  there  are  no  traces  of  criminality  or  in- 
sanity. Thus  it  is  a  right  wholly  subordinated  to  the  ethical 
ends  of  society,  and  determines  duties  in  others  only  in  propor- 
tion as  the  subject  respects  it  as  a  moral  qualification  and  oppor- 
tunity to  serve  those  ends  of  his  own  will. 

(c)  The  Eight  to  Personal  Property. — By  personal  property 
I  shall  mean  tliat  which  is  the  product  of  a  man's  own  eflbrt  or 
labor.  It  is  illustrated  in  man's  implements  and  all  objects  of 
manufacture  in  which  the  value  is  increased  over  and  above  its 
raw  or  niiturul  worth' by  the  labor  bestowed  upon  them.  I  shall 
therefore  distinguish  sharply  between  j^crsonal  and  what  I  shall 
call  natural  property.  The  distinction  is  usually  between  ])er- 
sonal  and  real  i)ropcrty,  in  which  "  real "  prcjpcrty  denotes  im- 


THEORY  OF  EIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  437 

movable  objects,  iududiug  tenements  as  well  as  laud  or  natural 
resources.  But  in  the  conception  here  advanced  "  personal " 
property  includes  houses  and  tenements  as  products  of  human 
labor,  and  so  represents  a  value  derived  therefrom.  Lands  or 
natural  resources,  however,  do  not  derive  their  properties  or  value 
from  human  labor  in  the  first  instance,  and  hence  must  stand  upon 
a  different  footing  in  the  doctrine,  of  rights.  The  distinction  in 
positive  law,  affecting  matters  of  transfer  and  criminality,  is  be- 
tween movable  and  immovable  property.  But  in  ethics  the  doc- 
trine of  rights  requires  us  to  draw  it  at  another  point,  and  hence 
an  extension  of  the  term  "  personal  "  and  the  substitution  of 
"  natural  "  for  "  real."  By  "  natural "  property,  however,  I  shall 
not  mean  that  what  a  man  has  by  nature,  but  only  that  the 
objects  represented  by  it  are  natural  in  contrast  with  artificial 
objects,  "  personal  "  referring  to  the  latter,  and  the  former  denot- 
ing what  are  called  natural  resources,  such  as  lands,  mines,  water- 
power,  forests,  etc.  With  this  distinction  made  clear  in  this  man- 
ner, we  may  turn  to  the  consideration  of  personal  property  and 
its  possession  as  a  natural  right.  The  question  of  land  will  come 
up  under  political  rights. 

That  personal  property  is  held  by  a  natural  as  opposed  to  a 
political  right,  and  without  any  claims  of  society  upon  it,  except 
under  limitations  to  be  considered  again,  will  be  apparent  from 
the  law  of  desert  in  human  conduct  and  the  corollary  implied  by 
it.  This  is  the  deepest  law  of  the  moral  world.  It  asserts  or 
implies  that  every  man  ought  to  receive  the  benefits  and  to  bear  .the 
evil  of  his  own  actions.  The  organization  of  rewards  and  penal- 
ties in  civil  society  proceeds  wholly  upon  this  principle.  Moral- 
ity and  its  judgments  of  approval  and  disapproval  do  the  same. 
Indeed,  morality  could  not  exist  without  it.  Now,  it  is  simply  a 
special  application  or  corollary  of  this  law  to  say  that  evei'y  man 
is  entitled  to  the  benefits  or  results  of  his  own  labor.  To  deny 
this  is  to  deny  the  law  of  desert,  which  denial  would  defeat  all 
morality.  Hence,  on  the  principle  of  desert,  Ave  can  affirm  that 
a  man  has  a  natural  right  to  the  results  of  his  own  activity  or 
labor.     If  he  has  not  this  right,  social  order  is  not  possible,  and 


438  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

no  claim  whatever  can  be  made  to  the  products  of  will,  though 
wc  have  supposed  in  the  interest  of  self-preservation  and  self-reali- 
zation that  a  man  has  a  right  to  liberty.  Unless  a  man  can  be 
entitled  to  the  results  of  his  labor  or  activity,  the  right  to  liberty 
is  wholly  useless  and  nugatory.  The  use  of  what  a  man  produces 
by  his  own  exertion  is  essential  to  every  ol)ject  imposed  by  obli- 
gation and  legitimate  self-interest,  so  that  a  man  must  come  by 
it  on  the  ground  of  natural  rights.  It  is  not  anything  which 
can  be  wholly  separated  from  the  man,  even  when  the  public 
good  requires  the  abridgment  of  the  right.  Support  and  pro- 
tection are  still  claimable,  and  must  be  substituted  for  the  re- 
strictions upon  the  abuses  of  it.  But  where  incapacity  docs  not 
unfit  the  subject  for  liberty,  the  right  is  wholly  exempt  from  lim- 
itations, except  those  that  are  most  general.  It  simply  follows 
from  the  assumed  liberty  of  volition  and  carries  with  it  the  claim 
to  every  intended  result  of  that  act. 

To  illustrate,  a  man  who  makes  a  hoe,  a  shovel,  a  reaper,  or 
implement  of  any  kind  whatever,  a  house,  a  piece  of  cloth,  or 
produces  articles  of  food,  has  an  unquestioned  right  to  their 
ownership  and  use.  No  one  else  can  claim  them,  though  human- 
ity may  require  the  sacrifice  of  them  ;  not  on  the  ground  of 
rights,  but  on  the  ground  of  duties.  They  are  simply  the  mate- 
rialized or  objective  will  of  the  subject  and  as  much  his  own  as 
his  volitions.  The  whole  social  and  economic  fabric  is  founded 
upon  the  principle,  and  to  infringe  it  is  to  destroy  that  fabric  by 
discouraging  or  nullifying  the  springs  of  activity  and  to  grant  to 
the  non-workers  and  indolent  freedom  to  enjoy  what  they  do  not 
produce.  It  is,  therefore,  absolutely  indispensable  to  civilization, 
which  is  the  survival  of  the  morally  fittest,  even  if  that  moral 
quality  does  not  extend  beyond  the  possession  and  exercise  of 
prudence. 

But  there  are  two  important  considerations  in  connection  with 
this  right  which  modify  the  naked  and  absolute  assertion  of  it. 
The  first  is  a  limitation  to  the  use  or  exchange  of  such  property, 
governe<l  by  the  right  of  the  community  to  security  against  un- 
fair treatment  in   trade.     The  right  to  the  ownership  of  such 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  439 

goods  and  their  use  for  personal  purposes  may  be  granted  to 
almost  any  extent,  but  the  right  to  prey  upon  others'  necessities 
by  unfair  enhancement  of  values  must  be  abridged.  That  is, 
monopolies,  even  of  such  products,  are  inconsistent  with  the  equal 
rights  of  others.  But  this  is  because  of  the  second  consideration. 
The  second  fact,  therefore,  is  that  the  value  of  every  product  is 
compound,  a  union  of  the  natural  and  the  artificial  values. 
Every  article  of  a  material  kind  represents  the  value  which  na- 
ture supplies  and  that  which  labor  creates.  It  is  difficult  to  fix 
absolutely  the  proportions  of  these,  but  the  fact  that  both  exist 
and  are  at  least  approximately  determinable  fixes  a  limit  to  the 
individual's  control  over  the  product  of  his  labor.  He  is  abso- 
lutely entitled  only  to  the  value  which  his  labor  creates,  and  that 
is  not  always  easily  assignable,  Avhile  the  value  which  nature 
and  human  wants  give  it  are  not  his  individual  property  at  all. 
In  character,  and  perhaps  knowledge,  the  whole  value  belongs  to 
the  producer.  In  objects  of  physical  manufacture  this  is  not  so, 
and  hence  monopolies  either  of  natural  or  manufactured  prod- 
ucts are  subject  to  social  regulation  and  only  the  results  of  the 
individual's  labor  can  be  claimed  as  his  own.  The  only  practical 
difficulty  is  to  determine  how  much  this  is. 

It  will  be  apparent  from  the  principles  here  presented  that 
current  discussions  about  the  right  to  private  property  too  fre- 
quently fail  to  distinguish  between  personal  and  natural  property, 
and  also  to  recognize  the  effect  of  natural-  values  complicated 
with  the  artificial  in  modifying  the  right  to  personal  property  in 
the  concrete,  where  the  product  is  conceived  to  have  been  wholly 
created  by  the  subject's  action.  Hence  there  is  much  confusion 
on  both  sides  of  the  controversy  about  Socialism.  This  doctrine 
generally  appears  opposed  to  private  property,  and  is  so  in  regard 
to  land  or  natural  resources.  This  antagonism  is  construed  as 
an  oj)position  to  all  private  property.  But  in  fact  Socialism 
cannot  stand  without  admitting  the  right  to  what  I  have  called 
personal  pi'operty.  This  is  essential  to  its  very  existence.  But 
what  the  Utopian  in  that  field  never  perceives  is  that  his  theory 
is  too  broad  to  be  ethical  and  so  contradicts  itself,  and  takes  no 


440  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

account  of  those  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical  qualities  in  men 
which  affect  the  values  of  their  productions  and  prevent  the 
equality  of  possession  and  control  which  it  is  the  aim  of  an  ideal 
society  under  ideal  conditions  to  establish. 

2.  Political  Eights. — Political  rights  are  characterized  by 
more  distinct  limitations  than  personal  rights.  The  reason  is 
that  they  are  claims  from  others  on  the  ground  of  moral  qualifi- 
cations for  performing  social  duties,  instead  of  claims  against 
others  on  the  ground  of  liberty  in  actions  not  affecting  others. 
This  peculiar  difference  between  the  two  classes  has  already  been 
mentioned.  But  there  is  also  the  fact  to  be  noticed  that  political 
rights  are  based  upon  two  characteristics :  the  first  is  man's  duty 
to  the  commonwealth  and  the  second  his  capacity  for  serving  it. 
The  absence  of  either  characteristic  puts  an  end  to  the  enjoyment 
of  the  right,  the  conditions  of  incapacity  being  determinable  by 
law.  They  are  all  conferred  upon  individuals  only  upon  the 
condition  of  fitness  to  use  them,  and  the  criterion  for  this  is  pri- 
marily the  age  of  majority,  but  modified  by  other  considerations 
as  the  trust  involved  is  more  important.  Each  of  them  may  be 
briefly  considered. 

(a)  The  Eight  to  Natural  Property. — We  have  already  dis- 
tinguished between  private  property  in  land  or  natural  resources 
(land  being  the  economic  term  for  the  latter)  and  property  in 
one's  own  productions,  and  it  remains  to  show  that  the  two  rights 
are  different  from  each  other,  the  latter  being  subject  to  more  de- 
cided limitations  than  the  former,  if  not  in  actual  law,  certainly 
in  the  ethics  of  the  matter..  The  one  reason  that  the  individual 
cannot  claim  the  right  to  property  in  land  is  that  he  has  not 
created  its  utility,  which  is  mainly  the  measure  of  its  social  value. 
Tlie  principle  that  a  man  is  entitled  to  the  intended  result  of  his 
own  action  involves  also  the  fact  that  a  man  cannot  claim  a 
value  which  he  has  not  produced.  If  he  could  claim  this,  there 
would  be  no  security  for  even  personal  proi)erty.  Hence  a  man 
can  lay  no  personal  claim  to  natural  resources  beyond  that  which 
iiis  social  relations  jjrocure  for  him.  All  natural  property  or 
land  belongs  to  society ;  that  is,  men  as  an  aggregate  of  persons, 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  441 

and  no  one  individually  has  more  right  to  it  than  another.  The 
fact  that  all  have  an  equal  right  to  it  takes  it  out  of  the  category 
of  personal  property,  where  only  the  producer  has  a  legitimate 
claim  upon  it,  and  makes  it  the  joint  possession  of  society,  and 
dedicates  it  to  the  moral  ends  of  the  race  rather  than  of  the  in- 
dividual against  the  race. 

This  doctrine  would  seem  to  be  the  socialistic  view.  But  such 
an  interpretation  of  it  would  be  a  mistaken  one.  Socialism  gen- 
erally assumes  that  laud,  at  present,  is  not  in  possession  of  the 
state,  and  maintains  that  it  should  be  transferred  to  the  state. 
The  doctrine  here  advanced  is  that  it  is  at  present  fully  owned 
by  the  state  as  a  natural  right,  but  granted  to  the  individual  as  a 
political  right,  as  a  measure  of  expediency  for  securing  the  great- 
est possible  amount  of  production.  The  proofs  that  the  state 
actually  owns  all  natural  resources  consist  in  the  following  facts : 
(a)  The  right  of  confiscation  for  public  purposes ;  *  (b)  the 
reversion  of  intestate  lands  to  the  state;  (c)  the  existence  of 
common  lands  which  no  one  can  appropriate ;  (d)  state  control 
and  distribution  of  unappropriated  lands,  as  the  homestead  law  in 
the  United  States.  These  facts  show  that  natural  resources  are 
actually  owned  and  controlled  by  the  state  at  present  rather  than 
absolutely  by  the  individual.  What  we  call  private  property  in 
land  is  in  reality  simply  a  social  policy  by  ivJdch  the  state  dis- 
tributes the  responsibility  for  production  among  its  citizens  instead 
of  assuming  all  of  it  to  itself.  This  policy  represents  several  char- 
acteristics, which  constitute  all  that  the  institution  of  private 
property  in  land  practically  means  :  (a)  Security  of  tenure  ;  (b) 
encouragement  and  protection  of  improvements ;  (c)  exemption 
from  political  responsibility  for  poverty  ;  (d)  the  distribution  of 
political  and  social  pressure  in  determining  the  amount  of  pro- 

*The  fact  that  personal  property  in  the  form  of  houses,  etc.,  can 
be  confiscated  is  no  objection  to  the  force  of  this  argument,  because  it  is 
the  fact  of  immobility  that  necessitates  the  taking  of  it  when  land  is 
taken.  Were  liouses  and  tenements  movable,  like  implements,  they  would 
not  be  confiscable.  Chattels,  knowledge,  and  character,  all  personal  prop- 
erty, are  not  confiscable,  showing  that  the  principle  holds  good. 


442  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

duction.  Private  property  in  land  is  simply  a  political  expedi- 
ent for  accomplisLing  these  ends,  and  some  such  measures  would 
have  to  be  adopted  no  matter  what  term  we  employed  to  express 
the  abstract  rights  of  the  system,  and  hence  the  controversy 
should  not  be  regarding  Socialism  or  the  nationalization  of  land, 
because  it  is  necessarily  that  already,  but  regarding  the  best  means 
of  realizing  the  moral  purposes  of  society.  The  right  is  purely 
subordinate  to  these. 

{h)  The  Eight  to  the  Elective  Franchise. — This  right  can  be 
disposed  of  very  briefly.  It  is  the  right  to  participate  in  the 
functions  of  government.  That  it  is  a  political  and  not  a  natural 
right  is  proved  by  the  facts,  (a)  that  it  is  conditioned  by  the  age 
of  majority ;  (6)  that  a  period  of  residence  is  imposed  upon 
foreigners  before  obtaining  the  right ;  (c)  that  it  is  forfeited  by 
crimes  when  this  forfeiture  is  not  a  necessary  consequence  of  pun- 
ishment ;  (d)  that  it  is  limited  to  one  sex.  Its  political  character  is 
so  evident  that  there  would  be  no  reason  to  mention  it,  except  for 
the  very  common  tendency  to  speak  of  it  as  a  natural  right,  and 
to  distribute  it  without  reference  to  the  welfare  of  society.  Ques- 
tions like  that  of  universal  suffrage  and  that  of  its  extension  to 
w'omen  are  to  be  settled  solely  by  questions  of  political  expedi- 
ency. They  should  be  limited  or  extended  according  to  qualifi- 
cations. Fitness  to  fulfill  social  duties  and  to  aid  in  government 
should  be  the  criterion  of  the  right. 

(c)  The  Eight  to  Office. — This  is  the  right  to  perform  the 
functions  of  government,  and  its  determining  principle  ethically 
is  fitness,  but  politically  it  is  the  choice  of  the  electorate.  It  has 
more  distinctive  limitations  than  the  other  political  rights.  The 
three  rights  arc  differently  distributed,  that  to  property  in  land 
having  the  widest  distribution,  being  conferred  in  the  interest  of 
economic  production.  The  right  to  the  franchise  is  limited  to  those 
qualified  by  supposition  to  participate  in  government  indirectly, 
and  is  conferred  in  the  interest  of  defense  against  arbitrary  power. 
The  right  to  office,  or  to  exercise  the  direct  functions  of  govern- 
ment, is  limited  to  the  fewest  possible  individuals  in  order  to 
avoid   the   inconvenience   of  democratic   abuses,  and  6ui)poses 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES  443 

higher  moral  qualifications  than  cither  of  the  other  political 
rights. 

in.  THE  GROUXD  OF  RIGHTS.— In  determining  the  ground 
of  rights  we  intend  to  consider  more  than  the  mere  relation  of  one 
person  to  another  with  their  common  relation  to  nature.  We 
have  to  consider  the  nature  of  the  subject  of  them  at  the  same 
time.  A  right  when  possessed  is  the  property  of  the  man,  and  the 
question  is  whether  there  is  any  peculiar  element  of  his  nature 
other  than  his  equality  with  others  that  determines  the  existence 
of  his  rights.  We  have  supposed  that  B's  duties  are  determined 
by  A's  rights,  and  that  wherever  a  right  exists  in  one  person  it 
indicates  a  correlative  duty  in  others  to  respect  it.  This  seems 
to  make  rights  prior  in  nature  to  duties,  so  that  moral  obligation 
does  not  seem  to  extend  beyond  the  social  claims  of  others  upon 
the  subject,  and  thus  rights  seem  to  be  without  an  ethical  ground. 
There  is  reason  to  think,  however,  that  the  problem  is  not  so 
simple,  and  that  the  ultimate  ground  of  rights  is  either  a  duty 
somewhere  or  the  value  of  personaUty.  It  cannot  be  a  mere 
relation  between  two  living  beings,  because  if  it  were,  all  animal 
life  could  be  said  to  have  the  same  rights  as  man,  both  in  rela- 
tion to  man  and  in  relation  to  each  other.  Hence,  we  must  seek 
some  more  fundamental  principle  as  the  determining  basis  of 
rights. 

In  order  to  accomplish  this  most  effectively  we  must  turn  again 
to  the  divisions  of  rights  and  reconsider  them  brieflv,  addins:  a 
class  which  has  not  been  mentioned,  but  which  it  is  important  to 
notice.  We  shall,  therefore,  divide  all  rights  into  animal  and 
human  rights.  It  is  the  latter  class  which  we  have  considered, 
and  which  were  divided  into  natural  and  acquired  rights.  We 
shall  now  need  to  take  account  of  the  division  of  natural  into 
social  and  individual  or  moral  rights.  Social  rights  cover  actions 
that  are  socially  indifferent,  actions  that  are  not  in  conflict  with 
the  welfare  of  others.  Individual  or  moral  rights  cover  actions 
that  are  either  individually  indifferent  or  are  personal  duties. 
We  have,  then,  four  classes  of  rights  to  consider  in  determining 
whether  duties  arc  the  basis  of  all  or  of  only  a  part  of  rights,  or 


444  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

whether  they  condition  any  rights  at  all.  This  difference  in  the 
kind  of  rights  will  make  some  difference  in  the  statement  of  tlie 
case,  as  they  are  somewhat  differently  related  to  the  fundamental 
principles  which  determine  them.  We  have,  then,  to  repeat, 
four  divisions  of  rights  to  consider  in  ascertaining  their  rela- 
tion to  morality.  They  are  animal  rights,  and  of  human  rights 
there  are  the  social,  the  individual,  and  the  political.  Now  for 
their  relation  to  duty  and  morality. 

1st.  Relation  of  Rights  to  Morality. — AVe  take,  first,  the  polit- 
ical rights.  These  undoubtedly  have  a  moral  basis,  in  the  broad- 
est sense  of  that  term ;  for  they  depend  upon  the  possession  of 
certain  moral  qualifications,  though  these  are  or  may  be  nothing 
more  than  mature  intelligence  and  prudence.  They  are  not 
claims  which  the  individual  can  assert  on  the  ground  of  his  mere 
humanity.  A  man  must  be  sane  and  capable  of  self-control  in 
order  to  secure  political  rights.  This  is  because  a  jjolitical  right 
carries  with  it  or  implies  a  duty  to  others.  The  ability  to  per- 
form these  duties,  which  is  only  to  say  that  the  moral  capacity 
for  doing  certain  services  to  others  and  protecting  oneself  is  a 
condition  to  the  conferal  and  enjoyment  of  political  rights.  If 
this  capacity  docs  not  exist,  then  such  rights  are  not  granted ; 
instance  imbeciles,  the  insane,  and  criminals.  Hence  it  is  ajipar- 
ent  that  duty  to  society  and  to  self,  which  exists  only  where 
there  is  capacity  or  the  moral  luiture  to  realize  it,  is  the  condi- 
tion of  one  class  of  rights. 

The  actual  jiractice  of  politics  may  confer  them  ujoon  certain 
individuals  who  do  not  deserve  them.  But  men  are  quick  to 
perceive  that  such  persons  ought  not  to  receive  them.  This  is 
only  an  indirect  proof  of  the  claim  here  made,  and  an  ideal 
society  Avould  define  their  limitations  more  strictly  in  order  to 
meet  the  case.  But  even  in  our  defective  social  organization  we 
draw  tlic  line  somewhere  and  recognize  the  moral  qualifications 
conditioning  political  rights,  though  we  are  somewhat  lax  in  our 
jiidgmcnt  as  to  what  constitutes  moral  qualifications. 

The  deduction  of  individual  (ir  inoi-al  rights  is  not  so  easy. 
Wc   have  defined   them   as   dcuoliug    exemption    from    censure. 


THEORY  OF  EIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES  445 

Broadly  speaking,  we  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  a  man  has 
a  right  to  do  what  is  not  wrong,  and  we  include  both  social  and 
individual  actions.  But  limiting  ourselves  to  individual  conduct, 
that  which  is  not  WTong  includes  two  distinct  classes  of  actions, 
duties  and  indifferent  actions.  Hence,  to  affirm  a  right  is  to 
assert  the  claim  to  liberty  in  the  case  of  indifferent  actions,  free 
choice  w'ithout  censure  for  either  alternative,  and  the  claim  to 
immunity  in  the  exercise  of  duty,  though  not  the  liberty  of 
exemjition  from  obligation  which  we  possess  in  the  case  of 
indifferent  actions.  The  one  is  the  right  to  perform  person- 
ally  indifferent  actions,  and  the  other  is  the  right  to  perform 
personal  duties.  Each  of  these  must  be  considered  separately 
as  the  term  "  right "  has  not  exactly  the  same  import  in  both 
cases. 

First,  the  right  to  perform  personal  duties  is  beyond  dispute 
founded  upon  the  possession  of  these  duties.  It  is  primarily  a 
right  against  the  infringement  of  conscience  by  others.  If  the 
duties  did  not  exist,  the  right  to  perform  them  would  not  exist, 
unless  the  actions  were  socially  indifferent.  How  far  and  in 
what  sense  socially  indifferent  actions  exist  and  condition  rights 
will  be  determined  again.  But  it  is  clear  that  an  individual 
duty  carries  with  it  a  right  of  performance  against  all  claims  of 
society,  though  no  individual  duties  exist  which  can  conflict  with 
others'  rights.  This,  however,  is  because  others  can  have  no 
rights  where  the  individual  has  personal  duties.  If  they  had 
such  rights  then  the  sacrifice  of  personal  duties  could  be  com- 
manded. The  whole  doctrine  regarding  the  freedom  of  conscience 
is  an  embodiment  of  the  principle  that  a  certain  class  of  rights 
are  dependent  upon  obligations.  The  right  is  a  twofold  one ; 
first,  a  claim  for  liberty  against  infringement,  and  second,  a 
claim  of  the  rightness  of  the  action  involved,  which  is  one  of  the 
implications  of  the  term  rights,  though  applicable  only  where 
duties  exist  and  because  of  those  duties.  This  is  one  of  the 
peculiar  and  significant  ambiguities  of  the  term,  Avhich  connects 
it  with  duties,  on  the  one  hand,  and  impedes  the  reduction  of  its 
meaning  to  morality,  on  the  other,  unless  an  indirect  connection 


446  ELE2IENTS  OF  ETHICS 

^ul\l  duty  cau  be  ascertained.  This  will  be  determined  by  the 
answer  to  the  question  whether  rights  covering  indifferent  actions 
are  conditioned  by  duties. 

It  must  be  frankly  conceded  tliat  the  moral  deduction  of 
rights  in  indifferent  actions  is  not  so  easy.  We  shall  have  to  dis- 
tinguish between  those  that  are  socially  and  those  that  are  person- 
ally or  individually  indifferent  in  order  to  conduct  the  argument 
more  eflectively,  though  some  statements  may  be  made  without 
the  distinction.  In  the  first  place,  indifferent  actions  are  sup- 
posed to  be  without  moral  quality  and  unaccompanied  by  an 
obligation  to  i)crform  them.  They  receive  their  name  for  this 
very  reason.  But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  extent  of  this 
field  may  be  very  much  exaggerated.  In  the  first  place,  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  there  are  any  indifferent  actions.  It  may 
be  a  name  for  merely  imaginary  actions.  Some  have  main- 
tained that  all  conduct  must  be  either  good  or  bad,  and  that 
every  man  has  to  choose  between  duty  and  sin.  If  this  be  true, 
rights  can  exist  only  in  the  sphere  of  duties ;  for  wrong  excludes 
rights  of  all  kinds,  so  that  the  term  rights  covers  the  negative  of 
all  that  is  wrong,  and  if  there  were  any  indifferent  actions  they 
would  be  included  in  it.  The  denial  of  indifferent  actions  is  cer- 
tainly more  defensible  in  the  case  of  the  individual  tlian  in  that 
of  society,  for  every  action  exercises  more  or  less  influence  upon 
the  individual  agent,  but  may  often  be  wholly  unrelated  to  others. 
In  the  second  place,  if  there  are  any  actions  indifferent  to  the 
welfare  or  interests  of  others  than  those  who  do  them,  this  is  a 
fact  which  eliminates  all  claims  of  others  to  interfere  with  liberty 
of  volition,  as  by  supposition  no  duty  exists  in  others  to  interfere 
with  them.  In  looking  at  both  aspects  of  the  problem  we  do  not 
think  it  necessary  to  wholly  deny  the  existence  of  indifferent 
actions.  We  believe  that  many  actions  arc  socially  iudillbrcnt; 
that  is,  involve  neither  good  nor  evil  consequences  upon  others, 
though  in  this  highly  complex  civilization  they  are  much  less 
numerous  than  in  the  earlier  ages  of  history.  Economic  and 
political  solidarity,  caused  by  the  present  industrial  system,  with 
its  railways,   telograplis,  marine  service,  division  of  labor,  large 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  447 

and  concentrated  capital,  and  tlie  mutual  dependence  upon  each 
other  involved  in  them,  have  given  many  actions  a  consequence 
which  they  would  not  possess  in  the  earlier  ages  of  man's  devel- 
opment. The  sphere  of  indifferent  actions,  therefore,  socially 
considered,  and  hence  of  rights  independent  of  duties,  has  been 
very  much  abridged. 

Now,  assuming  that  there  are  no  indifferent  actions  socially 
considered,  the  sphere  of  duties  and  rights  would  coincide,  and  it 
might  be  asserted  that  others'  rights  are  conditioned  by  my 
duties  toward  them  growing  out  of  my  relation  to  them,  instead 
of  making  my  duties  the  correlative  of  their  rights.  This  po- 
sition is  quite  as  rational  as  to  condition  my  duties  upon  their 
rights,  and  the  same  principle  might  hold  true  to  that  extent  to 
which  I  can  be  said  to  have  duties  toward  others,  Avhether  there 
are  indifferent  actions  or  not.  In  fact  it  is  possible,  if  not  neces- 
sary, to  maintain  that  the  only  reason  for  making  rights  appar- 
ently prior  to  duties — that  is,  conditional  of  duties  in  others — is 
that  it  is  a  convenient  way  to  justify  the  application  of  force  for 
sustaining  them,  while  apart  from  legal  and  political  necessities 
my  duties  to  others  and  their  moral  personality  may  be  the  real 
ground  of  their  rights.  But  the  admission  of  socially  indifferent 
actions  and  the  supposition  that  rights  exist  with  these  when  the 
subject  has  no  duties  regarding  them,  would  do  much  to  nullify 
all  attempts  to  deduce  rights  from  the  existence  of  duties,  and 
hence  if  successful  at  all  we  must  turn  elsewhere  for  an  ethical 
deduction  of  rights. 

"While  it  may  be  true  that  there  are  many  socially  indifferent 
actions,  the  same  assertion  may  not  be  made  of  individual 
actions,  or  such  as  have  their  consequences  for  the  sul)ject  alone. 
It  is  at  least  possible  to  maintain  that  every  action  has  a  nearer 
or  remoter  interest  for  the  subject,  so  that  none  can  be  wholly 
indifferent  to  his  good.  If  this  be  true,  the  choice  can  only  be 
between  the  right  and  the  wrong,  so  that  the  sphere  of  rights  and 
duties  would  coincide,  the  former  being  determinable  by  the 
latter,  or  at  least  possil)ly  so.  It  is  true  that  some,  or  even 
many,  actions  may  be  indifferent  to  certain  ends,  assumed  to  be 


448  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

paramount  to  all  others.  But  this  does  not  make  them  ^Yholly 
indifferent  to  the  moral  personality  of  the  subject,  to  -whom  all 
actions  must  have  some  reference  for  good  or  ill,  directly  or 
indirectly,  proximately  or  remotely,  so  that  the  moral  life  is 
concerned  in  them  and  must  determine  rights  to  the  extent  to 
Avhich  that  personality  can  make  claims  upon  the  respect  of 
others.  The  duties  of  that  personality — that  is,  his  debts  to  the 
moral  law — will  depend  somewhat  upon  the  subject's  nature  and 
environment,  and  hence  a  grant  of  liberty  involving  rights  will 
be  necessary  on  the  ground  of  personal  worth  to  the  extent  to 
which  they  do  not  conflict  with  the  equal  rights  of  others.  But 
as  long  as  we  are  supposing  that  the  actions  are  socially  indifler- 
ent,  the  question  of  social  limitations  will  not  enter,  and  the 
concession  of  both  moral  and  social  rights  must  be  made  on  the 
ground  of  personality  with  its  implied  duties,  which  may  be 
of  both  a  superior  and  inferior  imperativeness.  If,  then,  we  find 
that  there  are  really  no  actions  that  are  personally  or  individ- 
ually indifferent,  but  only  of  varying  degrees  of  importance  to 
the  person  concerned,  we  are  obliged  to  take  account  of  that 
importance  in  considering  his  rights,  which  will  be  determined 
wholly  by  the  moral  value  we  attach  to  him  as  a  man  and 
as  a  part  of  the  social  system  to  which  he  belongs.  While 
a  man's  social  duties,  therefore,  are  determined  by  the  rights  of 
others,  at  least  as  construed  by  the  body  jjolitic,  both  his  social 
and  moral  rights  may  be  determined  by  his  own  duties,  not 
to  others,  but  to  the  moral  law,  so  that  rights  in  the  last  analysis 
would  have  an  ethical  basis.* 

It  must  be  granted,  however,  that  this  conclusion  will  not 
appear  so  clear,  if  it  be  supposed  that  there  are  such  things  as 

*Tlie  difEculty  in  supposing  that  rights  are  ever  founded  upon  duties 
comes  wlioily  from  tlie  tendency  to  give  the  idea  of  duty  notiiing  but 
a  social  content.  It  is  true  that  it  has  this  meaning  in  the  majority  of 
the  incidents  of  life,  but  it  also  expresses  the  absolute  imi)erative  implied 
by  the  highest  good,  and  so  gives  the  notion  of  moral  necessity  priority  to 
that  of  rights,  which  are  purely  social  in  the  sense  that  only  duties  exist 
in  a  state  of  isolation.  Distinguish,  then,  between  personal  and  social 
duties  and  an  ethical  basis  of  rights  becomes  possible. 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  44i) 

absolutely  indifferent  actions,  botli  personally  and  socially  con- 
sidered. For,  if  absolutely  indifferent  actions  exist  and  rights 
cover  them,  as  they  cover  all  that  is  not  wrong,  duty  would 
not  seem  to  be  their  ground.  This  is  clear  from  an  analysis  of 
the  two  conceptions.  Rights  imply  liberty,  impiinitive  choice; 
duties  imply  moral  necessity,  non-hnpunitive  choice  (freedom 
of  will  still  consisting  with  it).  The  distinction,  then,  would 
seem  to  be  that  while  duties  may  condition  rights  against  others' 
infringement,  rights  may  still  exist  where  specific  duties  in 
reference  to  the  same  actions  do  not  exist.  The  same  conclusion 
is  confirmed  by  the  doctrine  of  animal  rights  and  the  rights  of 
the  defective  classes  among  men,  such  as  the  insane  and  im- 
becile. Neither  animals  nor  the  insane  and  imbecile  can  be 
said  to  have  duties,  and  yet  they  are  said  to  have  rights.  The 
fact  in  this  instance  is  very  strong  for  a  non-ethical  basis  for 
rights. 

But  an  argument  may  be  forthcoming  which  is  of  considerable 
significance.  If  it  can  be  made  out  that  iri'esponsible  beings 
obtain  their  rights  from  the  relation  which  their  superiors  sus- 
tain to  the  moral  law,  it  would  seem  that  they  are  thus  indirectly 
traceable  to  duty,  though  not  the  duty  of  the  subject  of  those 
rights.  It  might  be  maintained  that  the  rights  of  animals  and 
irresponsible  persons  are  not  strictly  rights  at  all,  and  if  this  be 
admissible  the  relation  of  rights  to  moral  personality  would  be 
quite  definitely  settled.  But  usage  is  too  well  established  to 
evade  the  issue  in  this  way  and  such  rights  must  have  a  deduc- 
tion. We  have  already  alluded  to  the  possibility  of  deducing- 
all  rights  from  the  duties  of  one  person  to  another,  reversing  the 
order  of  dependence  usually  assumed,  which  grows  or  may  grow 
out  of  the  political  necessity  of  enforcing  a  duty  in  protection  of 
a  right  where  that  duty  is  not  appreciated  or  efficient.  At  the 
same  time  such  a  doctrine  must  assume  certain  qualities  in 
the  subject  of  rights  which  are  equally  their  condition  along 
with  the  duties  that  others  owe  them.  But  it  does  not  admit 
that  rights  can  originate  wholly  apart  from  a  relation  to  duty 
somewhere.     At  any  rate,  it  must  be  clear,  that  irresponsible 


450  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

beings,  whether  animal  or  human,  can  have  no  rights  except  in 
relation  to  rational  beings  who  have  duties.  They  have  no  rights 
in  relation  to  each  other,  and  it  is  equally  true  that  rational  be- 
ings have,  strictly  speaking,  no  rights,  but  only  power  against 
all  non-moral  and  irresponsible  forces ;  that  is,  no  rights  in  any 
sense  that  they  can  exact  a  duty  of  irrational  agencies.  Hence 
in  both  of  these  it  is  apparent,  first,  that  whatever  rights  are  at- 
tributed to  animals  and  non-rational  beings,  are  determined  by 
their  relation  to  those  who  are  subject  to  the  moral  law,  and 
second,  that  personality  is  the  condition  of  such  rights  as  rational 
beings  can  claim  against  each  other.  If,  then,  a  duty  in  the  sub- 
ject of  rights  does  not  always  determine  them,  a  relation  to  duty 
in  moral  agents  will  be  indispensable  to  their  existence  at  all. 
Such  a  conclusion  will  apply  to  indifferent  actions,  social  or  per- 
sonal. If  they  are  personally  indifferent,  their  value  as  condi- 
tions of  personal  freedom,  which  is  imjiortant  in  self-development, 
establishes  a  right  against  others  on  the  ground  of  their  general 
duty  belonging  to  the  personality  of  the  subject.  This  is  more 
especially  true  of  socially  indifferent  actions,  which  may  never  be 
personally  indifferent.  Though  such  rights  are  borrowed,  as  it 
were,  from  the  duties  of  others  to  the  subject  of  them,  they  prove 
that  there  is  no  possibility  of  rights  without  rationality  and 
moral  law  somewhere,  and  that  suffices  to  give  rights  an  ethical 
basis.  We  may,  therefore,  examine  the  specific  characteristics 
with  their  implied  relation  to  moral  beings,  which  determine  the 
existence  of  rights. 

2d.  Specific  Grounds  or  Basis  of  Rights. — The  cstal)lishment 
of  a  general  mcjrul  l)asi.s  for  rights  was  accomplished  only  by  as- 
suming different  points  of  view  for  the  various  kinds  of  rights. 
We  found  that  the  duties  of  the  subject  did  not  determine  all 
of  his  rights,  and  that  if  tlicy  existed  without  the  presence  of 
duties  some  other  ground  would  have  to  be  deteriuined  unless 
we  could  find  a  relation  to  the  duties  of  others  as  a  basis  for 
rights.  This  necessitated  tlie  recognition  of  more  than  one  cle- 
ment in  the  problem,  and  iiii])lied  that  the  ground  for  some 
rights  niiglit  l)e  found  in  the  nature  of  the  subject,  and  some  in 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  -iol 

the  nature  of  the  person  who  is  called  upon  to  res^pect  them  ; 
always,  however,  in  some  relation  to  the  moral  law  as  a  funda- 
mental condition  of  them.  Hence  in  selecting  the  particular 
characteristics  which  determine  rights,  or  are  one  element  of 
them,  we  must  recognize  the  complex  or  synthetic  nature  of 
their  ground  and  distinguish  between  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  conditions  of  rights.  Each  of  these  will  be  briefly 
considered. 

1.  Subjective  Conditions  of  Rights. — By  subjective  con- 
ditions of  rights  we  mean  those  characteristics  which  are  found 
in  the  subject  of  rights  and  which  are  their  primary  conditions. 
Beings  having  these  characteristics,  other  things  being  equal, 
will  be  entitled  to  rights  of  some  kind,  though  they  are 
variously  related  to  the  moral  law.  These  characteristics  are 
as  follows : 

(a)  Sensibility. — Sensibility  entitles  the  subject  of  it  to  such 
rights  as  exemption  from  unnecessary  pain  or  cruelty.  Beings 
possessing  this  alone  have  not  the  rights  we  attribute  to  rational 
creatures,  because  they  seem  in  no  way  an  end  to  themselves,  and 
yet  the  moral  law  commands  that  they  be  resjDected  to  the  ex- 
tent that  they  are  subjects  of  pain.  This  represents  the  field  of 
animal  rights,  and  it  applies  to  the  sensible  sphere  of  all  beings. 
The  moral  ground,  of  course,  is  the  duty  of  others  to  avoid  caus- 
ing unnecessary  pain.  Hence  it  is  not  the  mere  possession  of  sen- 
sibility that  determines  them,  but  this  in  relation  to  the  moral 
personality  of  others.  But  without  this  characteristic  no  rela- 
tion to  the  moral  law  in  others  would  determine  them.  But 
wherever  we  find  sensibility  to  pleasure  and  pain  with  this  rela- 
tion, we  afiirm  the  existence  of  rights  as  a  mode  of  protection 
against  unpunished  infringement.  Hence  the  term  applies  to 
animals  to  whom  duty  does  not  apply. 

(b)  Personality. — By  personality  we  mean  those  distinctive 
qualities  which  constitute  the  higher  nature  of  man  and  elevate 
him  above  the  mere  brute.  We  may  summarize  them  in  intel- 
lectual and  moral  capacity  or  rationality  in  the  highest  and 
most  comprehensive  sense  of  the  term.     This  is  usually  assumed 


452  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

to  constitute  a  iierson  who  is  entitled  to  respect  on  uccount  of  in- 
trinsic qualities,  not  usable  merely  as  a  means  to  an  end.  The 
completion  of  j^ersonality  will  involve  both  intelligence  and 
moral  capacity,  the  latter  being  required  to  condition  all  rights 
above  the  grade  of  the  animal  and  defective  classes.  What  we 
have  called  moral  rights  will  be  absolutely  conditioned  by  this 
characteristic.  The  conditioning  power  of  personality  is  peculiar 
Avhen  compared  with  sensibility,  in  the  fact  that  it  produces  that 
worth  in  the  subject  which  determines  the  existence  of  moral 
rights,  not  merely  the  right  to  others'  respect,  but  the  right  to 
the  impunities  of  conscience  and  the  right,  in  the  sense  of  the 
righteousness,  of  protection  against  the  aggression  of  foreign 
forces,  whether  personal  or  impersonal.  But  aside  from  this,  it 
is  a  characteristic  which  places  in  the  subject  the  same  reason 
for  the  existence  of  rights  as  is  found  in  other  personalities  for 
the  existence  of  duties.  That  is  to  say,  personality  determines 
duties,  and  these  will  determine  rights  more  conclusively  than 
mere  sensibility,  and  determine  them  in  a  way  in  which  they  are 
not  merely  a  reflex  of  others'  duties  to  the  moral  law. 

2.  Objective  Conditions  of  Eights. — The  relative  im- 
port of  the  term  rights  in  every  application  except  that  denoting 
the  rightness  of  the  actions  coming  under  the  protection  of  that 
idea,  makes  it  necessary  to  recognize  other  conditions  besides  the 
sensibility  and  personality  of  the  subject.  Inasmuch  as  rights 
are  claims  against  the  interference  of  others  who  are  presumably 
able  and  obliged  to  respect  them,  they  cannot  strictly  be  said  to 
exist  unless  those  conditions  exist  which  make  that  duty  possible. 
Hence,  conditions  independent  of  the  subject  are  necessary  for  the 
existence  and  determination  of  rights.  There  are  two  of  these 
conditions. 

(a)  Relation  to  Moral  Personality. — Before  any  being,  whether 
rational  or  irratitjnal,  can  properly  be  said  to  have  rights,  there 
must  exist  moral  persons  or  agents  to  whom  it  is  related.  The 
two  must  exist  in  a  social  relation,  or  in  some  relation  involving 
more  or  less  of  a  common  reference  to  nature  and  its  resources. 
As  rights  are  claims  of  immunity  against  foreign  infringement, 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  ASD  DUTIES  453 

some  agent  must  cxi?t  of  whom  it  is  rational  to  expect  a  regard 
to  such  a  claim.  If  that  agent  does  not  exist,  if  there  are  no 
rational  beings  other  than  the  subject  of  the  rights  supposed, 
there  is  no  reason  to  speak  of  rights  at  all.  There  are  only 
creatures  with  powers  under  this  assumption  and  the  only  rela- 
tion is  that  of  physically  superior  and  inferior.  Hence,  in  spite 
of  being  either  sensible  or  rational,  quite  as  important  a  condi- 
tion to  the  subject  is  the  fact  that  there  should  be  moral  per- 
sons to  whom  that  subject  shall  be  related  in  some  way.  This 
is  clear  from  the  fact  that  the  animals  have  no  rights  in  relation 
to  each  other,  and  that  man  has  no  rights  in  relation  to  animals. 
But  as  soon  as  either  of  them  come  into  a  social  relation  to 
man,  or  other  men,  the  possession  of  rights  originates.  The 
duty  or  duties  which  such  persons  owe  either  to  those  of  their 
own  kind  or  to  the  moral  law  which  condemns  all  unnecessary 
infliction  of  pain,  or  waste  of  life,  even  when  nothing  but  the 
lower  animals  are  involved,  comprehends  the  right  of  others 
to  protection  against  aggression,  not  necessarily  on  account  of 
their  own  inherent  worth,  but  on  account  of  the  worth  of  the 
moral  law. 

(b)  The  Liberty  and  Responsibility  of  Such  Persons. — It  is  not 
enough  that  other  persons  than  the  subject  should  exist  and  be 
in  a  certain  relation  to  those  who  are  supposed  to  have  rights ; 
that  is,  a  territorial  or  social  relation ;  but  those  who  are  sup- 
posed to  have  rights  must  not  in  any  of  their  relations  and  con- 
duct endanger  the  life  or  stand  in  the  way  of  the  legitimate  de- 
velopment of  those  who  are  supposed  to  owe  them  duties.  The 
persons  who  are  to  confer  and  respect  these  rights  must  have  a 
duty  to  the  beings  concerned  and  must  not  have  their  liberty 
infringed  by  circumstances  Avhich  make  defensive  action  neces- 
sary against  possible  or  actual  aggression.  In  this  way  we  find 
a  relation  to  moral  law  somewhere  absolutely  necessary  to 
rights ;  a  basis  is  gained  for  making  man's  duties  more  than  a 
hypothetical  obligation  to  respect  rights  which  without  such  a 
basis  would  at  best  represent  nothing  but  an  optional  end  and 
emancipate  conscience  the  moment  that  it  discovered  such  lib- 


454  ELEMESTS  OF  ETHICS 

erty  as  making  rights  ultimate  would  imply.     We  next  take  up 
duties. 

///.  THE  NATURE  OF  DUTIES. — The  doctrine  of  rights  has 
shown  us  that  duty  is  not  merely  a  correlative  of  them,  but  may 
also  express  moral  imperatives  beyond  the  sphere  of  rights  and 
representing  moral  claims  upon  conscience  which  would  be  valid 
independent  of  social  conditions.  We  have  now  to  examine  the 
nature  and  ground  of  such  obligations.  They  represent  those 
actions  which  the  moral  law  makes  necessary,  and  hence  in  the 
idea  will  be  found  the  full  import  of  ethics  and  its  distinction 
from  the  object  of  all  other  sciences  and  interests.  If  duties  do 
not  exist,  there  can  be  no  such  a  thing  as  ethics  and  morality ; 
only  liberty  to  do  as  we  please  could  be  the  result  of  denying 
the  legitimacy  of  duty  and  its  ultimateness.  If  it  exist,  how- 
ever, and  is  prior  to  the  existence  of  rights,  and  is  not  resolvable 
into  the  merely  conditional  necessity  of  adopting  a  particular 
means  to  an  optional  end,  it  determines  a  moral  imperative,  or  is 
that  imperative,  which  represents  one  of  the  sublimest  objects  of 
human  contemplation,  carrying  in  its  contents  and  meaning  the 
whole  destiny  of  man. 

1st.  Definition  of  Duty. — We  have  already  seen  that  the  ety- 
mological import  of  the  term  is  that  of  a  debt.  This  implies  that 
the  duty  must  always  be  to  some  one,  and  ]\Ir.  ^Nlartiueau  thinks 
the  idea  has  no  meaning  except  as  expressing  this  relation  to 
another  person,  divine  or  luiiuan.  This  may  be  true  for  all  the 
social  relations  of  life  and  for  the  religious  consciousness  which 
involves  a  relation  of  man  to  his  Creator,  a  relation  somewhat  like 
that  of  sul)ject  to  sovereign.  But  if  we  limit  its  contents  to 
social  relations,  unless  we  accepted  the  existence  of  God,  there 
would  be  no  reason  to  suppose  a  moral  imperative  binding  upon 
a  man  a])art  from  a  definite  social  relation  to  another  person. 
And  yet  we  instinctively  feel  that  a  man  in  his  individual 
capacity  oucjld  to  do  certain  things  whether  he  accepts  religious 
l)()stulate3  or  not,  and  without  any  relation  to  others ;  that 
is,  in  a  state  of  isolation.  To  be  sure,  his  respon.-^ibilities 
in  such    a   condition  would  not  be  great,   because  outside   the 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES  455 

social  state  tlie  possibilities  of  moral  attainment  might  not 
be  very  great.  But  such  as  they  would  be,  they  would  have  all 
the  imperativeness  of  duties  to  others,  whether  or  not  there  were 
any  influences,  internal  or  external,  to  make  them  efficient. 
That  the  religious  postulate  is  not  absolutely  necessary  to  feeling 
this  imperative  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  many  feel  it  who  do 
not  accept  such  a  postulate.  You  may  say  that  the  whole  objec- 
tive meaning  of  duty  is  lost  unless  this  religious  condition  be 
accepted,  and  this  claim  may  be  true.  But  it  does  not  effect  the 
subjective  or  psychological  presence  of  duty  which  is  not  condi- 
tioned by  any  theoretical  ideas  whatever.  Where  it  exists  at 
all  it  is  a  constitutional  part  of  the  subject  prior  to  any  theolog- 
ical conception  of  its  ground  and  meaning,  and  it  is  the  nature  of 
it  as  a  fact  of  human  consciousness  that  we  are  trying  to  deter- 
mine, not  the  object  of  it  or  its  import  relative  to  other  beings. 
Moreover,  to  condition  its  existence  upon  that  of  rights  would  be 
to  eliminate  it  altogether  where  rights  were  not  possible,  and  to 
make  the  person  a  libertine  for  the  lack  of  a  principle  to  assert 
the  claims  of  morality.  And,  again,  there  could  be  no  individ- 
ual morality  with  reference  to  the  subject's  own  perfection  and 
welfare,  if  we  gave  the  notion  a  purely  social  content.  Hence, 
concluding  that  it  applies  in  a  state  of  isolation  from  our  fellows 
and  without  the  prior  admission  of  theological  postulates,  we 
must  define  it  as  an  absolute  datum  of  rational  intelligence,  not 
a  mere  correlate  of  something  that  may  or  may  not  exist.  The 
widest  possible  meaning  of  the  term,  therefore,  is  the  feeling 
of  oughtness,  that  feeling  of ,  constraint  or  respect,  necessity  or 
imperativeness,  which  makes  a  man  responsible  for  the  choice  of  the 
ideal.  It  is  here  that  it  most  distinctly  contrasts  with  the  idea 
of  rights.  Rights  imply  liberty  and  impunity  in  choice,  exemp- 
tion from  infringement  and  censure.  Not  so  the  idea  of  duty. 
It  admits  of  no  exemption  from  consequences  that  are  not  de- 
sired by  the  subject.  It  permits  of  no  alternatives  that  will  free 
the  conscience  from  culpaliility.  It  holds  up  but  one  possibility 
to  the  will  without  suffering  for  deviation  from  a  moral  selec- 
tion.    The  vdW  is  free  to  choose  under  it,  but  not  free  to  escape 


456  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

the  consequences  whicli  it  may  desire  to  escape.  It  is  constrained 
by  the  ideal  to  respect  it,  or  to  accept  certain  disagreeable  con- 
sequences. Hence  it  expresses  no  indifference  of  choice,  but 
imposes  a  law  upon  the  will  which  must  be  either  one  of  respect 
for  the  ideal  and  contempt  for  its  opposite,  or  one  of  conflict 
against  natural  inclinations.  One  conception  of  the  term  limits 
it  to  the  notion  of  a  struggle  with  interest,  but  another  and  higher 
conception  of  it  involves  respect  for  the  ideal  without  any  tempta- 
tion of  interest.  The  former  represents  a  less  developed  morality 
and  the  latter  the  most  highly  developed  moral  consciousness. 
However,  the  common  conception  is  that  of  conflict  with  in- 
terest, and  hence  it  is  only  in  philosophic  parlance  that  it 
has  come  to  denote  reverence  for  law,  where  it  takes  on  the 
proper  ethical  meaning.  It  thus  expresses  moral  necessity 
and  limitations,  but  without  the  notion  of  restraint.  In  other 
•words,  it  is  the  sense  of  moral  law,  though  it  assumes  two 
forms,  the  higher  and  the  lower,  reverence  for  right  and  the 
fear  of  the  wrong. 

2d.  The  Ground  of  Duty — The  definition  of  duties,  though 
it  makes  them  absolute,  is  only  formal  and  does  not  indicate  the 
end  which  completes  their  true  meaning.  JMoreover,  the  abso- 
luteness of  duty,  as  mentioned,  does  not  imply  that  no  reason 
can  be  given  for  its  existence  or  validity,  but  only  that  the  idea 
can  not  be  reduced  or  resolved  into  the  necessity  of  choosing 
certain  means  to  an  optional  end  ;  as,  for  instance,  the  duty  to 
pay  for  a  coat,  if  I  buy  it.  But  it  expresses  the  absence  of  all 
alternatives  to  impunitive  selection.  Its  absoluteness  is  merely 
its  limitation  of  the  subject  to  the  moral  choice  in  volition. 
This  conception  of  its  absoluteness,  therefore,  does  not  prevent  us 
from  giving  a  reason  or  ground  for  its  existence  and  validity. 
As  a  state  of  consciousness  affecting  conduct  it  always  points 
to  an  end,  and  hence  it  remains  to  show  what  ol)jcct  or  end 
gives  it  the  sacredness  and  imperativeness  which  it  always 
possesses. 

In  determining  the  ground  of  duty,  or  all  the  duties  of  man, 
some  resjjcct  must  be  paid  to  the  several  theories  of  morality, 


THEORY  OF  BIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES  457 

which  in  realit}-  are  attempts  to  assign  this  very  basis.  When 
we  ask  why  such  and  such  an  obligation  is  binding  we  give  some 
end  which  the  act  is  to  realize,  some  principle  which  the  act 
embodies,  or  the  authority  of  some  power  over  the  subject  of  the 
duty.  Hence  we  may  answer  with  the  utilitarian  that  this  end 
is  happiness,  with  the  formalist  that  it  is  conformity  to  the  law 
of  rationality,  and  with  the  theologian  that  it  is  obedience  to 
the  Avill  of  God.  But  we  think  an  answer  can  be  given  which 
evades  these  several  controversies  and  possibly  reconciles  them. 
The  ground  of  obligation,  therefore,  is  one  which  is  identical 
with  perfectionism,  though  not  expressed  in  the  terms  of  that 
theory,  and  is  the  principle  by  which  Kant  supplemented  the 
formal  character  of  his  own  moral  law.  This  ground  we  ex- 
press in  the  maxim,  Every  man  should  treat  his  own  and  the  person 
of  others  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  not  merely  as  a  means.  Person- 
ality may  be  a  means  to  an  end,  but  if  conduct  be  moral  it  can 
never  use  man  merely  as  a  means.  Hence  moral  law  requires 
respect  for  the  intrinsic  worth  of  rational  personality,  as  an  end 
which  need  not  look  beyond  itself  to  some  remoter  end.  That 
this  form  of  stating  the  ground  of  dutv  is  better  than  that  which 
is  expressed  in  terms  of  utility  or  happiness  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  we  cannot  make  the  happiness  or  pleasure  of  others  our 
object  without  doing  more  injury  than  good.  AVe  may  aim  to 
produce  conditions  by  which  they  may  win  their  own  happiness. 
But  to  produce  the  happiness  directly  and  without  their  co-oper- 
ation is  simply  to  multiply  inertia  and  indolence.  Hence  the 
proper  end  of  our  action  toward  others,  whatever  we  accept  as 
tbe  motive  of  our  own,  is  to  look  at  their  personality  as  a  whole, 
not  to  produce  in  them  mere  good  feeling.  They  are  to  be  treated 
not  merely  as  means  to  our  own  ends,  but  as  ends  on  their  owh 
account.  We  may  be  influenced  by  their  happiness,  but  not  by 
that  alone.  Its  complement,  perfection,  and  their  person  as  an 
end  in  itself  must  be  considered.  On  the  other  hand,  this  object 
does  not  conflict  with  the  theological  doctrine.  We  may  refer 
to  the  will  of  God  as  a  reason  for  obedience,  and  this  will  may 
be  one  of  the  sanctions,  but  not  the  ground,  of  morality.     We 


458  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

may  still  ask  on  what  ground  we  should  obey  this  will,  and  the 
only  final  answer  that  can  be  given  in  the  case  would  be  the 
ultimate  e7id  which  such  conduct  realized.  And  we  could 
hardly  suppose  the  will  of  God  to  be  just  unless  it  aimed,  in  its 
injunctions,  at  the  perfection  and  happiness  of  man  ;  that  is, 
intended  that  man  should  treat  himself  and  be  treated  as  an  end 
in  himself.  Thus  the  theological  point  of  view  in  its  last  analy- 
sis would  be  resolved  into  the  position  just  maintained,  and  gets 
its  value  solely  from  being  a  motive  efficient  in  morality  mth 
religious  minds  where  the  abstract  philosophic  statement  in 
which  the  theological  doctrine  culminates  would  present  no  such 
power  over  the  will.  Hence  the  only  way  to  state  the  ultimate 
ground  of  duty,  free  from  the  confusion  of  controversy,  is  to  put 
it  in  terms  of  man's  intrinsic  worth  as  a  person  and  an  end  in 
himself. 

3d.  The  Divisions  of  Duty. — The  divisions  of  duty  will  mani- 
fest the  necessity  of  asserting  some  such  ground  for  morality  as 
is  here  presented,  while  they  at  the  same  time  evince  the  fact 
that  the  contents  of  morality  are  not  wholly  social.  As  long  as 
we  conceive  man  as  an  end  in  himself,  and  not  merely  a  means, 
we  are  obliged  to  consider  duty  as  valid  outside  of  social  rela- 
tions, even  though  many  of  its  contents  would  be  eliminated  by  a 
state  of  individual  isolation.  But  the  ultimate  principle  of  duty 
would  still  apply  by  virtue  of  the  moral  consciousness  of  oneself 
as  an  end.  As  in  fact,  however,  we  are  not  independent  of  social 
relations,  we  cannot  discard  them  in  our  recognition  of  the  na- 
ture and  extent  of  obligation.  But  the  two  conditions  give  rise 
to  two  distinct  classes  of  duties.  One  of  them  is  duties  to  self, 
often  called  individual  duties,  but  which  I  prefer  to  call  personal 
duties ;  the  other  is  dutia  to  others,  generally  called  social  duties. 
The  former  I  shall  subdivide  into  duties  of  self-preservation  and 
duties  of  self-development.  The  first  of  them  may  be  called  de- 
fensii'c  and  the  scccjnd  j)rogressive  duties,  the  latter  being  farther 
divided  into  self-culture  and  self-control.  Social  duties  may  be 
divided  into  those  representing  a  regard  to  rights  and  those  rep- 
resenting a  regard  to  personality  apart  from  rights.     I  shall  dis- 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES 


459 


tinguish  these  two  forms  as  Justice  and  Benevolence, 
ing  table  summarizes  this  classification : 


The  follow- 


Personal 


Social 


Defensive 


Progressive 


Justice 


Benevolence 


Life. 

Liberty. 

Property. 

Self-culture  \ 

Self-control  = 

Legality. 

Equity. 

Friendship. 

Magnanimity. 

Charity,  etc. 


The    True  =  Science 

Knowledge. 
The  Beautiful  =  Art 

^Esthetics. 
The  Good  =  Morality. 


In  this  classification  we  must  not  mistake  the  true  meaning  of 
the  distinction  between  personal  and  social  duties.  Personal  or 
individual  duties  express  the  subject  of  obligation,  but  social 
duties  do  not  imply  that  society  is  the  subject  of  them,  because 
society  is  only  an  abstraction  and  is  not  a  person.  It  is  only  a 
name  for  a  collective  whole  of  individuals  or  persons  exercising 
certain  social  functions.  This  being  the  case  it  is  apparent  that 
all  duties  are  individual  or  personal  in  respect  of  the  subject  of 
them,  and  hence  the  distinction  between  the  two  classes  is  not 
between  the  subjects,  but  between  the  objects,  of  duty.  In  per- 
sonal duties  the  subject  is  also  their  object ;  in  social  duties  the 
person  having  them  is  the  subject  and  other  persons  or  beings  are 
the  objects  of  them.  In  personal  duties  the  subject  and  ob- 
ject are  the  same  ;  in  social  duties  they  are  different.  This  con- 
ception of  the  matter  is  important  in  order  to  obtain  a  correct 
view  of  the  methods  of  moralizing  man.  In  the  last  analysis  the 
individual  subject  of  duty  must  be  the  unit  of  morality,  and  any 
attempt  to  consider  it  otherwise  only  hypostasizes  an  abstraction. 

In  this  classificatioavilso  Benevolence  has  a  very  comprehen- 
sive import.  I  intend^t  to  express  good  xvill  beyond  the  mere 
province  of  rights.  Its  full  meaning  will  be  made  clear  in  the 
brief  examination  of  the  grounds  of  social  duties. 

4th.  The  Import  of  Personal  Duties. — The  general  ground  of 
duties  has  been  shown  to  be  personality.     Of  pei-sonal  duties  it 


400  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

can  be  expressed  in  the  formula  that  every  man  should  treat  his 
own  jyerson  as  an  end  in  itself  and  not  merely  as  a  means.  This 
conception  secures  the  existence  of  duty  apart  from  social  rela- 
tions and  conditions,  and  bases  it  upon  the  constitutional  nature 
of  the  sul)ject.  Morality  thus  has  a  profounder  basis  than  mere 
rights  which  may  express  nothing  but  the  liberty  to  perform 
indifferent  actions,  supposing  them  to  exist.  It  provides  a 
necessary  course  of  action  and  ends,  while  rights  imply  the  choice 
of  any  alternative  and  immunity  from  infringement  or  censure. 

The  only  farther  question  raised  by  the  assertion  of  personal 
duties  is  whether  there  are  any  duties  which  are  only  personal. 
The  fact  is  that  in  a  social  order  self-defense  and  self-develop- 
ment also  involve  the  interests  of  others  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent.  This  is  especially  true  in  our  highly  complex  civiliza- 
tion with  its  intellectual,  social,  political,  and  industrial  soli- 
daz'ity  of  interests.  Self-preservation,  therefore,  is  not  always  a 
mere  duty  to  self  as  an  end,  but  may  be  a  duty  to  others  either 
dependent  upon  us  by  virtue  of  obligations  we  have  ourselves 
assumed,  or  for  whom  we  are  capable  of  performing  a  benevolent 
service.  Self-culture  and  control  may  redound  both  to  the  ben- 
efit of  the  community  and  to  posterity,  who  may  inherit  the 
results  of  it.  Such  being  the  case  personal  duties  may  have  a 
double  ground :  the  first  by  virtue  of  a  man's  duty  to  his  own 
person,  and  second,  by  virtue  of  the  extent  to  which  the  welfare 
of  others  is  involved  in  the  development  of  the  subject's  own 
personality. 

5th.  The  Import  of  Social  Duties. — The  same  general  ground 
applies  to  social  as  to  personal  duties,  but  it  would  be  formulated 
with  reference  to  the  object  of  them ;  thus,  every  man  should 
treat  the  person  of  others  as  an  end  in  itself  and  not  merely  as 
a  means.  There  is,  however,  an  additional  fact  which  helps  to 
distinguish  the  ground  of  social  from  that  of  personal  duties. 
Social  duties  are  based  upon  rights,  personal  duties  upon  ;)cr- 
sonalUy.  There  is  a  still  further  distinction  between  the  grounds 
of  justice  and  benevolence  which  will  be  considered  in  its  place. 

1.  JuSTiCK. — The  conception  of  justice  is  a  complex  one.     It 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES'  461 

is  not  always  used  in  the  same  sense.  It  will,  therefore,  be  neces- 
sary to  examine  it  briefly  and  to  determine  the  exact  scope  of  its 
meaning. 

(a)  Definition  of  Justice. — The  meaning  of  the  term  was  at 
first  quite  identical  with  right  or  moral.  This  is  especially 
noticeable  in  early  Greek  writers  and  Plato.  The  reason  for  this 
was  the  fact  that  the  sphere  of  morality  did  not  extend  beyond 
social  customs  and  duties,  and  though  Plato  proposed  a  higher 
foundation  for  morality  than  custom,  he  did  not  distinguish  be- 
tween personal  and  social  duties,  and  hence  the  content  of  all  mo- 
rality was  expressed  by  justice  (diKaioGvvif),  which  denoted 
equally  personal  righteousness  and  right  social  conduct  or  obe- 
dience to  the  laws.  Aristotle  drew  the  distinction  between  civil 
and  ??!07-aZ  justice,  by  which  he  meant  mere  conformity  to  the  law, 
in  the  one  case,  and  voluntarily  righteous  conduct  toward  others, 
in  the  second  case.  This  was  practically  the  distinction  between 
objective  or  external  and  subjective  or  internal  morality,  though 
he  did  not  carry  the  doctrine  so  far  as  to  recognize  personal 
duties  independent  of  the  social.  All  morality  was  still  social 
with  Aristotle.  But  the  distinction  between  justice  that  was  en- 
forced by  law  and  justice  that  was  voluntarily  done  was  the  in- 
ception of  the  distinction  between  morality  and  mere  conformity 
to  law,  and  did  much  to  limit  the  notion  of  justice  to  its  modern 
import  of  merely  correct  social  conduct. 

There  is,  however,  another  meaning  of  the  term  which  has  all 
along  accompanied  the  development  of  the  one  just  mentioned. 
It  is  that  which  identifies  the  term  with  retributive  punishment. 
The  same  general  import  is  at  the  basis  of  this  as  of  the  former 
conception,  but  it  is  not  noticeable  on  the  surface..  But  a  com- 
prehensive definition  must  include  it.  Hence  the  broadest  defi- 
nition of  justice  will  be  that  it  is  the  maintenance  of  desert.  This 
comprehensive  conception  includes  respect  for  rights  and  the  de- 
fense of  them  when  violated.  The  former  involves  conformity  to 
law  and  the  latter  the  punishment  of  its  violation.  This  distinc- 
tion gives  rise  to  the  divisions  of  justice,  which  may  be  briefly  con- 
sidered. 


462  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

(b)  Divisions  of  Justice. — The  distinction  between  justice  as 
respect  for  rights,  whether  enforced  or  vokmtary,  and  the  inflic- 
tion of  penalties  for  infringing  rights,  is  expressed  by  the  divis- 
ion of  justice  into  Positive  or  Tributive  justice  and  Negative  or 
Punitive  justice.     The  former  concerns  the  doing  of  such  actions 
as  others  may  demand  of  us,  the  latter  concerns  the  treatment  of 
wrong  actions.     The  formula  for  covering  both  forms  of  it  may 
be  expressed  as  follows  and  given  the  character  of  a  maxim : 
Every  man  should  respect  and  protect  rights,  so  that  social  wrong 
viay  neither  be  done  nor  suffered,  and  that  social  right  may  pre- 
vail.    Each  of  these  divisions  has  its  sub-divisions  according  as 
the  justice  is  determined  by  forms  of  conduct,  or  by  forms  of 
punishment.     Positive  or    tributive  justice  we  divide  into  Le- 
gality and  Equity.     Legality  is  mere  conformity  to  positive  laws, 
supposed  to  express  the  rights  of  men,  and  exempts  the  subject 
from  legal  penalties.     Equity  is  respect  for  rights  apart  from 
and  without  legal  requirement,  and  represents  moral  motives  in 
social  conduct.     It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  there  may  be  a 
conflict  between  legality  and  equity,  considered  in  their  objective 
aspects.      Objectively    legality    is    presumptively   based    upon 
equity,  but  positive  laws  may  conflict  with  strict  equity,  and 
hence  when  this  is  the  case  the  latter  has  the  binding  quality, 
though  there  may  be  nothing  to  make  it  effective.     They  are 
distinguished,  however,  in  the  following  manner.     Legality  ex- 
empts from  civil,  and  equity  from  moral,  penalties.     Moreover, 
legality  cannot  be  more  than  objectively  right  conduct,  equity 
will  be  mbjcctively  as  well  as  objectively  right  conduct.     E(|uity 
is,  of  course,  the  object  of  law,  but  the  casuistry  of  life  aiul  its 
conditions   often    makes   mere   legality   a    shield  for   manifold 
forms  of  injustice.     Hence  the  value  of  equity  as  the  basis  of 
justice,  or  the  ideal  at  which  legality  is  supposed  to  aim. 

The  divisions  of  negative  or  punitive  justice  are  Corrective 
and  Retributive  punishment.  I'rcventive  "  punishment  "  is  not 
included  here  Ijccause  it  is  not  wlini  taken  alone  so  much  a 
means  of  maintaining  justice  as  of  defense  against  injury  from 
every  source  whatsoever,  whether  personal  or  impersonal.     Since 


Positive 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  463 

it  is  a  measure  to  protect  men  against  irrational  as  well  as 
rational  beings,  it  would  comprehend  more  than  the  maintenance 
of  justice,  strictly  so  called,  which  is  defended  in  behalf  of  rights, 
while  rights  cannot  exist,  except  in  persons,  or  in  a  relation  to 
persons.  Purely  preventive  measures,  therefore,  do  not  secure 
justice,  but  merely  protection  against  injury  from  superior  power. 
"We  consequently  recognize  only  two  forms  of  punitive  justice. 
The  following  table  summarizes  the  divisions  of  justice  : 

(Legality  =  Conformity  to  positive  law. 
Equity  =  Conformity  to  moral  law. 
(Corrective  punishment  =  Reformative  discipline. 
Eetributive  punishment  =  Compensatory  discipline. 

(c)  General  Principles  of  Justice. — There  is  a  peculiarity  in 
connection  with  every  form  of  justice  which  cannot  be  over- 
looked. It  is  based  somehow  upon  the  idea  of  equality,  at  least, 
equality  of  some  kind,  and  yet  the  recognized  inequality  of  men 
creates  some  curiosity  to  know  what  equality  it  is  that  is  embod- 
ied in  the  notion  of  justice  and  its  implications.  The  usual  doc- 
trine is  that  all  men  are  equal  before  the  law,  and  justice  is 
spoken  of  as  regarding  all  men  as  equal.  The  statement,  how- 
ever, is  misleading.  It  is  not  true  that  all  men  are  equal  either 
intellectually,  morally,  or  physically,  though  the  law  must  treat 
them  as  equals,  if  not  in  one  sense,  certainly  in  another.  The 
reason  for  this  is  found  in  the  following  facts. 

Justice  is  founded  upon  rights  and  the  duty  to  respect  them. 
It,  therefore,  deals  with  the  social  relations  between  men  and 
such  actions  as  affect  the  welfare  of  society.  Consequently  its 
subject  matter  is  objective  morality,  which  is  purely  a  question  of 
external  results  to  men,  and  is  not  concerned  with  motives.  To 
establish  and  maintain  justice  is  to  see  that  each  man's  rights  are 
secured  and  social  order  preserved,  and  it  matters  not  what  the 
motives  of  the  agent  are  in  effecting  this  end.  It  is  the  result 
which  is  desired,  and  though  it  would  be  morally  better  if  it 
could  be  obtained  by  respect  to  equity,  it  is  sufficient  if  it  is  ac- 
complished only  by  legality.     Now,  the  attainment  of  objective 


464  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

morality  does  not  require  equality  between  men.  It  is  the  nat- 
ural consequence  of  certain  actions  without  regard  to  motives  or 
the  degree  of  intelligence.  Thus  the  payment  of  a  debt,  the  per- 
formance of  honest  conduct,  the  telling  of  the  truth,  or  the  ful- 
fillment of  a  promise  can  each  be  done  by  persons  of  all  degrees 
of  moral,  intellectual,  or  physical  inequality,  though  the  effects 
of  their  actions  are  equal.  It  is,  therefore,  the  equality  of  the 
effects  of  men's  actions  that  determines  their  equality  before  the 
law,  and  no  differences  can  be  justly  permitted  on  the  ground  of 
social,  moral,  or  other  differences.  Thus  an  act  of  embezzlement 
by  a  rich  man  causes  as  much  evil,  or  the  game  consequences,  as 
by  a  poor  man  ;  the  effect  of  not  paying  a  debt  is  the  same  what- 
ever the  motive,  social  standing,  or  commercial  ability  of  the 
agent ;  the  right  to  equal  wages  is  determined  by  equal  produc- 
tion or  equal  services ;  w'here  services  vary  wages  must  vary. 
The  penalties  for  crime  are  the  same  for  all  persons  without  dis- 
tinction of  wealth  or  character,  because  the  injustice  done  is  not 
affected  by  these  considerations.  As  an  illustration  of  the  same 
principle  it  is  uniformly  recognized  that,  in  theory  as  least,  piece 
wage  is  more  just  than  a  time  wage,  because  it  rewards  accord- 
ing to  economic  services.  On  the  other  hand,  it  no  more  hinders 
injustice  by  the  laborer  than  time  wages,  as  he  can  "  scamp  "  his 
work  under  both  systems.  In  piece  wages  he  can  exert  himself 
to  increase  the  quantity  of  jjroductiou  at  the  exjiense  of  quality 
and  thus  increase  his  w'ages.  This  and  all  industrial  phenomena 
show  that  the  standard  of  justice  in  the  economic  world  is  equal- 
ity of  services,  and  injustice  is  inequality  of  services,  the  effect 
upon  individuals  not  being  determined  by  motives  or  any  other 
considerations  of  character  whatsoever.  Hence  the  i)roblems  of 
justice,  whether  positive  or  punitive,  turn  about  ol)jective  moral- 
ity and  are  l)af^ed  u])(jn  it,  where  volitions  arc  e(jual,  without 
regard  to  conditions  of  character. 

An  exception  to  this  is  ai)i)arcnt  in  the  case  of  capital  pun- 
ishment and  })erha})s  a  few  otlicr  penalties,  where  the  distinction 
of  severity  is  Inised  upon  motives  and  not  upon  the  consecpiences. 
Also  the  modern  theory  of  indefinite  periods  of  confinement  for 


THEORY  OF  EIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES  465 

crime  would  seem  to  disregard  the  criterion  of  oljjcctive  conse- 
quences altogether  and  treat  men  as  unequal  before  the  law. 
Moreover,  public  and  private  opinion  often  proceeds  upon  dis- 
tinctions of  personal  character  and  merit  in  the  feelings  that  it 
exhibits  and  the  distribution  of  rewards  and  penalties  which  it 
favors.  From  these  facts  it  would  appear  that  justice,  positive 
and  punitive,  was  not  based  wholly  upon  objective  consequences. 
In  reply  to  this  objection,  however,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  in  all 
instances  of  economic  justice  equality  of  services  or  of  injury  is 
the  theoretical  and  practical  standard  of  judgment.  The  penal- 
ties for  every  form  of  dishonesty  are  the  same  without  distinc- 
tion of  motive,  standing,  or  intelligence.  It  is  the  same  for  every 
form  of  ordinary  personal  injury,  and  any  application  of  an 
unequal  standard  on  the  ground  of  wealth,  social  position,  or 
other  qualification  is  universally  condemned  as  unjust.  In  the 
second  case  we  must  distinguish  between  the  basis  and  the  object 
of  justice.  If  rewards  and  penalties  were  purely  compematonj 
in  their  object,  they  would  never  appear  to  conflict  with  the 
equality  demanded  in  their  basis.  But  they  are  preventive  and 
corrective  as  well  as  compensatory,  and  this  fact  complicates 
them  with  the  principles  of  benevolence,  which  disregards  exter- 
nal considerations,  or  may  do  so,  and  takes  account  of  distinc- 
tions in  personal  worth,  or  of  future  possibilities  in  this  respect. 
Hence  the  degree  of  punishment,  or  of  limitations  to  the  will, 
depend  upon  the  extent  of  the  subject's  responsibility  and  the 
possibility  of  his  regeneration  by  discipline,  but  the  kind  of  pun- 
ishment will  depend  upon  the  form  of  injustice  committed ;  that 
is,  the  kind  of  objective  conduct  and  consequences.  The  same 
principle  is  true  of  rewards.  They  must  be  measured  by  respon- 
sibility and  capacity  to  appreciate  and  use  them  rightly,  though 
the  right  to  bestow  them  depends  upon  objective  social  relations. 
This  view  ought  to  be  apparent  from  the  single  fact  that  no  pun- 
ishment is  justifiable  unless  a  social  wrong  has  been  committed, 
no  matter  what  the  motives  or  character  of  the  subject  in  his 
conduct.  The  basis  of  justice,  therefore,  will  be  objective 
.  morality,  though  the  object  of  it  will  be  the  rcAvard  of  personal 


406  ELEMENTS  OF  ETHICS 

merit,  oii  the  one  hand,  aud  the  reformatiou  of  the  criminal,  on 
the  other,  a  fact  which  shows  that  justice  has  its  connections 
with  benevolence  though  its  subject  matter  and  ground  are  rights 
and  objective  morality. 

2.  Bexevole]S[ce. — After  what  has  been  said  of  justice  little 
needs  to  be  said  of  benevolence.  The  comprehensive  import  of 
the  term,  however,  as  here  used  and  more  or  less  contrasted  with 
justice,  requires  a  little  attention. 

Ordinarily  the  term  is  synonymous  wath  charity  or  kindness  to 
the  poor.  But  we  here  take  it  in  its  broader  etymological  import 
to  denote  (jood  tdll  toward  man  and  beast.  The  term  humanity 
exactly  expresses  its  meaning  and  is  often  associated  in  the  same 
way  with  the  notion  of  justice.  It  is,  therefore,  that  respect  for  per- 
sonality and  sensitive  beings  which  carries  moral  law  and  good  will 
beyond  the  strict  limits  of  either  legality  or  equity  and  endeavors 
to  overcome  some  of  the  inequalities  of  nature.  It  is  the  virtue 
that  characterizes  the  magnanimity  and  pity  of  the  strong  for  the 
weak,  and  is  a  universal  duty  of  those  who  can  avoid  the  unnec- 
essary infliction  of  pain,  benefit  the  weak  and  helpless,  or  culti- 
vate social  relations  with  equals.  It  is  the  one  condition  of  all 
the  higher  life  of  man,  and  lies  at  the  basis  of  whatever  progress 
he  has  ever  made  in  the  course  of  his  history. 

The  ethical  principle  represented  by  it  is  found  in  those  duties 
which  are  both  independent  of  duties  to  self  and  supplementary 
to  those  founded  upon  the  rights  of  other  persons.  Benevolence, 
therefore,  is  founded  upon  the  rights  of  all  creatures  as  deter- 
mined by  man's  duty  to  the  moral  law.  This,  however,  is  only  a 
way  of  indicating  that  it  has  no  foundation  except  its  own  worth, 
and  that  its  object  is  respect  for  rights  determined  by  the  moral 
law,  rather  than  by  any  moral  personality  in  the  subject  of  those 
rights.  In  other  words,  benevolence  is  not  bound  by  any  equality 
of  its  objects  with  the  subject  of  it.  And  it  is  farther  character- 
ized as  a  duty  which  cannot  be  legally,  but  only  luorally,  exacted 
of  the  individual.  The  ol)ject  of  it  cannot  claim  any  luitural 
right  to  it.  It  is  a  gi-atuity  bestowed  according  to  merit,  or  ac- 
cording to  the  su])ject's  capacity,  and  duty  to  do  more  for  his  fel- 


THEORY  OF  RIGHTS  AXD  DUTIES  407 

lows,  when  prudent,  than  social  rights  may  demand.  It  is,  there- 
fore, consistent  Avith  every  form  of  inequality  and  endeavors  by 
good  will  and  sympathy  to  alleviate  the  ills  and  burdens  of  life. 
"While  justice  deals  with  objective  data,  benevolence  deals  with 
the  subjective,  and  acts  according  to  personal  worth  or  merit,  or 
according  to  the  principle  of  humanity,  which  endeavors  to  lessen 
pain,  so  far  as  possible,  and  to  distribute  more  evenly  such  as  can- 
not be  prevented,  while  it  promotes  happiness,  or  rather  the 
conditions  of  it,  as  a  means  of  reducing  life's  inequalities,  espe- 
cially such  as  are  artificial  and  due  to  the  complexities  of  the 
social  organism. 

IV.  CONCLUSIOX. — The  examination  of  rights  and  duties 
leaves  us  with  an  interesting  result.  They  are  found  to  have  a 
very  complicated  relation.  On  the  one  hand,  the  correlation  of 
duties  with  rights  seemed  to  leave  us  with  a  foundation  of  duty 
which  represented  nothing  but  an  optional  end  to  sanctify  them, 
which  is  equivalent  to  eliminating  moral  obligation  altogether.  On 
the  other  hand,  duties  seemed  to  have  a  range  of  sanctity  and 
urgency  that  place  them  above  mere  impunitive  actions,  and  to 
represent  an  imperative  function  of  consciousness  that  is  valid 
for  man  when  he  has  no  social  relations  to  respect.  Then,  inas- 
much as  rights  could  not  exist  at  all  except  in  relation  to 
personality,  which  must  be  the  basic  principle  of  ethics,  we 
found  a  way  to  place  duty,  in  its  most  comprehensive  import,  at 
the  basis  of  rights,  and  thus  to  give  them  an  ethical  import  which 
otherwise  they  would  not  possess.  Duty  became  the  prior  and 
conditioning  principle  of  rights,  first  of  the  rights  of  the  subject, 
and  second  of  the  object,  or  others.  Consequently  justice  and 
benevolence,  as  well  as  the  personal  virtues,  obtained  a  moral 
rather  than  a  conventional  foundation. 

References. — Trendelenburg :  Is  aturrecht ;  Spencer :  Social  Statics, 
pp.  36-68  ;  ill.,  Principles  of  Etliics,  Vol.  II.;  Sidgwick:  The  Elements 
of  Politics,  Chapters  VIII.  and  XIII.;  Kant:  Metaphysik  der  Sitten  ; 
Godwin:  Inquiry  Concerning  Political  Justice,  Vol.  I.,  Book  II. 


IN^DEX 


Abelard,  58 

Act,  115,  117,  119,  147 

-(Esthetics,  9 

^Esthetic  school,  83-86 

Altruism,  354,  361 

Ancient  ethics,  19 

Anthropology,  11 

Appetites,  29 

Aristotle,  32-38,  256 

Authority  of  conscience,  274-282 

Automatic  actions,  110,  307,  310 

Bad,  93 

Benevolence,  464 
Bentham,  364,  376 
Berkeley,  69 
Butler,  260 

Categorical  imperative,  6.    Also 

see  Duty 
Causality  and  cause,  174^176,  190 
Character,  167,  185 
Christianity,  50-59,  258 
Clarke,  82  " 
Conscience,  106,  112,  144,  233-235, 

251-283,  284-349 
Conscientiousness.     See  Duty 
Consciousness,  110,  212 
Consequences.     See  End 
Conventional  theory,  352 
Corrective  discipline,  242,  462 
Cosmological  theory,  351 
Cudworth,  83 
Cumberland,  83 

Darwix,  325-327 
Deliberation,  35,  194-212 
Descartes,  59,  62-64 
Desire,  23,  29,  271-274 
Determinism,  42,  159,  163-172 
Dorner,  261 
Dugald  Stewart,  260 
Duty,  103-105,  454-467 

Egoism,  354,  360 

Emotion,  106 

Empiricism,  287,  305-321,  355 

End,  120,  148 

English  ethics,  78-88 

Environment,  188,  237,  321 


Epicureanism,  43-48 
Epicureans,  25,  38,  43-48,  257 
Epicurus,  43 
Ethics,  definition  of,  1-4 ;  divisions 

of,  13;  scope  of,  14-17 
Eudffimonism.     See  Hedonism 
Evolution,  289,  334,  340 
Evolutionism,  321-348 
Experience,  317-319 
Experientialism,  288,  306 

Formalism,  354,  388-393 
Freedom  of  will,  35,  42,  65,  67-68, 

70,  75,  111,  150-223,  229-233 
Freedomism,  159,  163,  172-224 
Furies,  253 

Genesis  of  moral  ideas,  14 
Gnosiological  theory,  355 
God,  50,  /  6,  77 
Good,  15,  93-97 

Habit,  170,  322 
Happiness,  362 
Hedonism,  353,  359-384 
Heredity,  168,  186,  238,  323 
Hobbes,  79-81 
Hume,  6,  69,  84-86 
Hutcheson,  83 

Ideal  and  the  actual,  5 
Idealism,  64 

Imperative,  categorical,     ^ee  Duty 
Impulse,  29,  106,  125-130,  238 
Imputability,  226-229 
Indifierent  actions,  443-450 
Inditlerentism,  161,  163 
Indeterminism,  161,  163 
Individualism,  354 
Inhibition,  197-202 
Instinct,  106,  130-136,  311 
Intellectualists,  81-83 
Intuition,  295 

Intuitionalism,  286,  295-305 
Intuitionism,  355 

Judaism,  54-56 

Justice,  31,  36,  85,  460-466 

Kant,  6,  52,  68-78,  388 
Knowledge,  29,  36,  41,  106 


470 


INDEX 


Leibnitz,  67-68 
Libertarianism,  159 
Liberty,  152,  434 
Locke,  81 
Logic,  8 
Lotze,  4 

Martineatj,  261,  378,  402 
Mechanical  laws,  174 
Mediaeval  ethics,  50 
Metaphysics,  12 
Mill,  J.'y.,  376 
Modern  ethics,  59-88 
Moral,  101-103 
Moralism,  354,  385-393 
Morality,  101-103,110,  407 
Morality  and  religion,  398-423 
Moral ization,  282 
Moral  responsibility,  228-237 
Moral  rights,  426 
Moral  sense,  83-86 
Motivation,  271-274 
Motives,  106, 115, 119, 121-147, 179- 
184 

Nativism,  285 

Is^atural  and  moral  virtue,  33,  72 
Natural  rights,  433-440 
Natural  selection,  324 
Naturalism,  280,  294 
Necessitarianism,  159 
Neo-Platonism,  48-50,  53,  257 
Nomological  theory,  351,  359 

Objective  morality,  116,  463-466 
Obligation.     See  Duty 
Ontological  theories,  350,  357 
Origin,  314 

Passionh,  106,  108 

Perfectionism,  32,  354,  385-388 

Personality,  451,  457,  460 

Physical  science,  12 

Plato,  25-32,  255 

Pleasure,    20-21,   26,  44,  362,   364, 

372,  374,  376 
Politics,  10,  37 
Predestination,  172,  189 
I're<lictid)ility,  170,  178 
Preventive  punisliinent,  241 
Properlv,  4:55,  440 
Protestantism,  60-62,  258 
Prudence,  143 


Psychology,  7 
Punishment,  240-250,  462 

Rational  actions,  197,  235-237 
Reason,  29,  106,  136-147,  308 
Reflex  actions,  110,  196 
Reformation,  60 
Religion,  13,  19,  400-407 
Responsibility,  118,  188,  224-240 
Result,  115,  119,  148 
Retribution,  246-249,  463 
Right,  97-101 
Rights,  98,  424-454 
Rights,  ground  of,  441-452 

Sanction,  41 0-415 

Schopenhaur,  260 

Self-control,  459 

Shaftesbury,  83 

Sidgwick,  27 

Social  rights,  426 

Sociology,  11 

Socrates,  21-24,  255 

Sophists,  19-20 

Spencer,  327-332, 365,^380 

Spinoza,  65-67 

Spontaneity,  154,  202 

Stewart,  Diigald,  260 

Stoics,  39-43,  256 

Subjective  morality,  116 

Supremacy  of  conscience,  274-282 

Teleolooioal  theory,  353 
Theism,  285,  290-294 
Theological  theory,  351 
Theories  of  morality,  349-397 
Theo-volitional  tiieory,  352 
Trendelenburg,  424 

Univolism,  165 
Utilitarianism,  45,  354,  361-384 

Validity,  15 
Velleity,  156,  205 
Vice,  90 

Virtue,  30,  34,  40,  90 
Voiiti<m,  106,  159,  177 
^^)lunta^y,  35 

Wii.i,,  106,  150-223 
Wrong,  il7 
\Vutti<e,  261 


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